 -----Original Message-----
  From: Dennis Watabayashi <wata@kuentos.guam.net>
  To: AP-English <ap-english@list.collegeboard.org>
  Date: Friday, October 05, 2001 9:58 PM
  Subject: [ap-english] Re: Dubliners


  Rhona,
  I have found the film The Dead to be an excellent tool, it really helps the students focus on tone and characterization in the short story. The movie stars Anjelica Huston and i believe it was directed by John Huston. I have the students write a comp/con essay between story and movie.

  Karen
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Rhona Scoville 
    To: AP-English 
    Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 7:42 AM
    Subject: [ap-english] Dubliners


    Dear Colleagues, 
    I'm getting ready to start Dubliners in about 3 weeks. I've never taught it before. Actually, I have decided to pare it down to just "Araby," "Eveline," and "The Dead." I've accumulated some stuff off the web by surfing, but I know some of you wonderful folks have fabulous ideas. Can anyone throw anything my way? Rhona ---
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-------------------

From: Adrien Salvas [asalvas@garden.net]
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 06:41
To: AP-English
Subject: [ap-english] Re: Dubliners

For "Araby," I spend time on the opening couple of paragraphs to establish both tone and setting. Make sure you make the kids "look out the window" to see the old bicycle pump and apple tree, etc. There's much to talk about there. Also, notice how the girl is always above the boy, as on her front porch and the light is behind her, so she "glows" as with a halo. The kids will not understand the reference to the money, specifically the price of admission to Araby, and don't let that point pass with discussion. They will not understand it without help. Good luck!  "Araby" is the best!!

Adrien Salvas

From: Randall Brown [brownr@jenkintown.org]
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 15:03
To: AP-English
Subject: [ap-english] Re: Dubliners

I use Araby with my heterogeneously grouped ninth graders. Some areas of focus include:

(1) I introduce them to the idea of allegories through Adam/Eve/Eden and The Holy Grail.  Araby might involve both of these.

(2)  I introduce the idea of Jungian/Passage interpretation.  Araby involves a great example of a loss of innocence story.  In such stories, the goal is often to see that the "monster" is not without, but within. 
Again, Araby exemplifies this idea nicely.

(3).  I introduce the idea of making interpretations by analyzing echo structures, or repeated elements.  Araby has many of these, such as the 
idea of "looking/blindness."

(4)  I introduce the idea of "close reading" in comprehension. Araby requires such a close reading. For example, it could be important to realize that the girl never asks the boy to go to Araby; that the uncle is late because he has been out drinking; and so on. Also, the conversation that takes place at the end often is mis-read by many of the students.

(5) The boy in Araby projects his vision of Mangan's sister into the world, seeing her where she doesn't belong.  I love when students see, in the conversation that takes place at the end, the girl as being Mangan's sister.  In a sense, they have done what the boy has done: projected her into the world.  I wonder if Joyce has created a story in which some readers will be "guilty" of the very thing his main character is guilty of.  If so, well, there is genius at work.

(6) A final reason is a personal interest, that of using the ideas of Jacques Lacan to analyze literature.  Araby works well for such an analaysis. But such interests explain why I have no friends and have time to type up such a note on a Saturday night.


---

From: Nancy S. Potter [pottern@mail4.halcyon.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 20:55
To: AP-English
Subject: [ap-english] Re: Dubliners

A good way to introduce these incredible stories is by using Dylan 
Thomas's PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AS A YOUNG DOG.  The kids love the 
stories which parody Joyce's, complete with epiphanies and all. They 
are easily read.  "The Dead" is my favorite...


-----------------------
From: Adrien Salvas [asalvas@garden.net]
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2001 06:47
To: AP-English
Subject: [ap-english] Re: Dubliners

Speaking of "Portrait," I always use "Araby" as an introduction to Joyce's "Portrait," before I assign any of it. I think "Araby" is in many ways J's "Portrait" in microcosm.

------------------

From: Elizabeth MacKenzie Davis [EMacKenzie@lhnw.lhsa.com]
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 05:16
To: AP-English
Subject: [ap-english] RE: Dubliners

For "The Dead" 

Some of these ideas I probably got from others on this list serve, as well as from a college professor I know, as well as from internet sites, so I can't claim credit for all of them, but they definintely work.  I would also recommend showing the movie.  There are many internet sites that are helpful as well.  

Joyce Unit "The Dead"

For tomorrow, Wednesday, you should pick out four words 

that you found interesting, regardless of context, and say why. 

On Wednesday, you will widen the context by picking out (in groups)

three images. (Pretend it's a video and you have to hit the pause button at 

several points and capture an image. Which one would it be? And why?) 



Then do the same thing for the very last section of the story--Gabriel's vision. 

How does the language change at the end? (Note how the rhythms become like those of a song ("falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling")



Wrap up question:

How does Joyce use the power of language to enhance your understanding and the stylistic beauty of this story?

"The Dead" The Ending



But how to have the story relate to anything in the students' experience? That's a tough one, because it's in part about middle-age disillusionment. But MAYBE more than that. If they've read "Araby" (also part of Dubliners), they might see some similarities. The story, in fact, gets most poignant when Gretta tells her husband Gabriel about her first love, Michael (both names of archangels--hmmmm.). Now there's this moment when he realizes that his wife's look as she listened to the music on the stairway just before 

they left the aunts' house (the one he described as "Distant Music") was not for him, that her emotion as they arrived at the hotel was not for him. The moment when he sees himself clearly and coldly for the first time as the pathetic creature he is--not someone who would ever do something as foolish and romantic as Michael Furey. 

So maybe it is about something that students can relate to--about putting up a front so that you fit in, about being completely blind to how others see you, about being cautious and superficial about everything because it's not cool to be passionate about stuff, about how easy it is not even to realize how narrow and insular your world really is--whether in middle-class, early 20th cent. Dublin or middle-class, early 21st cent. Farmington Hills (a theme explored in "Araby" as well). I'd say to students, "Look, you're about to fall asleep now, if you haven't already, and wake up about 60 years from now, just in time to regret that you weren't awake for more of your life. What Joyce is talking about is characters who are sleepwalking through most of their lives, just like we all do much of the time. Only occasionally are there small things that happen to wake us up temporarily." As Samuel Beckett, who once worked as Joyce's amanuensis, says in one of his plays, "Habit is a great deadener." But whoa! That kind of stuff can seem pretty remote to the average teenager.

Then there's the whole issue of male and female in the story. Everything is seen through Gabriel's eyes--his objectifying gaze which fixes all the women in the story (note how many he encounters at various points during the evening). Does he really see or understand any of them, including his wife? Might be an interesting experiment to consider how some small section of the story (like the cab ride back to the hotel, etc.) would be if told from Gretta's point-of-view).



Reflection:

Write me a sketch of the

most boring family holiday gathering you could imagine

Reconstruct a little of the stultifying and aimless conversation as well. 

Joyce Unit, The Dead



"The Dead" and Characterization

TASK A: For each of the following characters, study the physical description, 

personal values/beliefs, actions and words to determine the role of each 

character in relation to the theme of the story:

Aunt Julia

Aunt Kate

Gretta

Gabriel

Mary Jane

Freddy Malins

Bartel D'Arcy

Mrs. Ivors

Lily, the slavey

Mr. Brown

TASK B: In a group, be able to present answers to the above. 

TASK C: Also- this a story dealing with characters in the public eye- but 

all categories of Joyce's characterization are present. In which category 

does your character fall? WHY?

TASK D: Create a thesis statement regarding Joyce's creation of your 

assigned character as crucial to the story's total effect.











































James Joyce Unit

The Dead, directed by John Huston





As you watch The Dead, as presented by director John Huston, please track the 

visual presentation of imagery and symbolism. Note scenes that depict 

examples of the following images and jot down examples that you may include 

in your paper:

Death imagery:

Images of paralysis: (numbing, freezing, etc)

Images of longing or personal desires/discontent with society:

Images of blindness:

Images of Traditions as powerful:





James Joyce out-of-class paper





Select ONE of the following paper topics. Write a well-developed and typed 

(double-spaced) paper in response to the topic of your choice. Please remember to include specific text support. Will be worth 50 points. 

Length- must be at 2-3 pages, typed.

DUE: Wednesday, November 22

A) An effective literary work does not merely stop; it concludes. In the 

view of some critics, a work that does not provide the pleasure of 

significant "closure" has terminated with an artistic fault. A satisfactory 

ending is not, however, always conclusive in every sense; significant closure 

may require the reader to abide with or adjust to ambiguity and uncertainty. 

Discuss the ending. Explain precisely how and why 

the ending appropriately or inappropriately concludes this stories. 

Do not summarize the plots.

B) An epiphany in Joyce's stories is a moment when the protagonist reaches a 

self-revelation, a sudden, spiritual manifestation. Explain Joyce's technique in preparing the 

reader for those moments of revelation. Consider his treatment of fictional 

elements such as: theme, repeated images, word-choice, language, 

characterization, and point of view.

------------------

Re: [ap-english] DublinersFrom: Patrick P. Lynch [padraig@we.mediaone.net]
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2001 17:44
To: AP-English
Subject: [ap-english] Re: Dubliners

I have taught D. a lot and let throw a few parallels between the stories your way.  1) Consider adding one of the "public" stories ("A Mother" might work--Bartell D'Arcy is featured in it and "The Dead"; "Clay" works very well off of "Eveline" Evy and Maria could be the same woman at different stages; the coin from "Two Gallants" may be Gabriel's coin in "The Dead") to round them off.  Joyce uses stages: "Araby" is "youth"; "Eveline" is Pre-marraige; "The Dead" sums them all up.


parallels:
Mangans' sister on the steps foreshadows Gretta listening to D'Arcy on the Landing.
Evy's failure to go to Buenos Aires parallels Gabriel's not visiting the West of Ireland
Evy looking out the window, the boy looking out the window foreshadow Gabriel's looking out the window at the party and his final peer through the window at the snow "general all over Ireland")
The boy's "bearing his chalice among the throng of foes" resembles Gabriel's preparation for his speech and the Three GRACES.
The upstairs dance and Gabriel's being lower than Gretta all arise from the two planes of existence (the house at the beginning of "Araby" and the epiphany at the end "lights out above") Illusion vs reality.  Gretta, Mangan's sister, the Aunts on the high plane, Lilly, the girl with the British soldiers, on the lower plane.


Hope that helps,
Patrick
  Dear Colleagues,
  I'm getting ready to start Dubliners in about 3 weeks. I've never taught it before. Actually, I have decided to pare it down to just "Araby," "Eveline," and "The Dead." I've accumulated some stuff off the web by surfing, but I know some of you wonderful folks have fabulous ideas. Can anyone throw anything my way? Rhona ---
  You are currently subscribed to ap-english as: PADRAIG@WE.MEDIAONE.NET
  To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-ap-english-5962780B@list.collegeboard.org


-- 
Patrick Lynch (padraig@well.com and padraig@mediaone.net)
"Is it the water or the wave?"  John Fowles, -The Magus-
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