2. What would you say is today's version of The Lottery?
What evils do we continue to practice in our culture without knowing why we continue to perpetrate them?
3. In what ways is Kafka's Hunger Artist an artist? Is he an artist at all? How is Kafka using the term artist?
4. "The Hunger Artist," "The Lottery," and other stories we've studied say a great deal about the community around which the stories are based. What do these two stories (for this week) say about their communities, and how does that insight connect to the subject matter of the semester, the subject of enslavement?
The biggest connection between "The Lottery" with "Blood-Burning Moon," (and actually several other stories we've covered)is that social construction that is so difficult to overcome -- those prejudices that are passed down much like tradition. Despite any laws, the majority is able to dictate its own law and order and who is able to challenge that? There is a mentality that people must follow tradition and culture so blindly that they don't see the damage being done -- or because the damage isn't being done to them, then it's acceptable. The Lottery really does bother people as the day draws near, but then everyone is relieved when it's not them being stoned to death. It depicts that selfish human nature. The Lottery is such a great story to analyze next to the others, which delineate American history, because it seems so fictional and obviously so blatantly heinous. In looking more closely at it, though, we see the similarities with the stoning (which seems so archiac) and lynching, which still goes on today. Today we have people beaten for being gay, for being black, for being "illegal," except there is less social condoning of these behaviors, that mob mentality still exists in our society.
ReplyDeleteI could go on and on, but I will spare you all.
I am running the Danbury half marathon tomorrow, so I'll definitely be a little "off" Monday.
Robin
4. Concerning community -
ReplyDeleteI don’t know that there’s anything particularly interesting in whether or not the public is entertained by the artist. I don’t think the idea of a hunger artist is any more absurd than anything one might see at Ripley’s Believe It Or Not; it certainly doesn’t seem any more absurd than Reality Television. I think that the community Kafka portrays responds a lot like the reader might respond. They really don't understand much at all about what the artist does, which, to him, is their greatest flaw. I find the story to be more about him than them, because it's his internal struggle-without-struggle, trying to find where he belongs in the world only to find that he doesn't belong at all. He lacks defining characteristics of humans - hunger in a literal and metaphorical sense, and the biblical reference concerning a forty day maximum is ironic. He is not really human (as Christ wasn’t really human) but he is not deified. He doesn't hunger because he doesn't desire, and that’s why he’s the interesting figure here. He wants to be like the rest of society; he wants to have a place. He has no zest for life and depends completely upon the appreciation of others for nourishment. But you can’t fault the people for not being entertained by it forever. Audiences want the entertainers to make difficult tasks look easy; they don’t want the difficult tasks to be easy. Athletes and musicians and the like train and practice to enhance what they’re physically able to do and we can appreciate their craft. We know that “talent” really only takes someone so far. My point is that if you are born able to do something people aren’t always going to be amazed that you do it. The hunger artist was built to fast, that’s how he works, so we can be amazed at the fact he is built that way but after that… he’s just performing his proper function. Even he knows that. Of course the people are more interested in the panther. It’s dangerous, out of its element, exotic, seemingly self-sufficient and has a “joy of life.” It’s the Tyler Durden to the artist’s I-am-Jack’s-defective-tastebuds.
I agree with Robin in the idea that we can connect "the Lottery" with "Blood Burning Moon" in the sense of the mob mentality among other issues. I think that the passing down of "tradition" and the cultural construction of traditions, such as the stoning because the crops will be good or the fact that the whites lynch blacks for whatever reasons, need to be looked at in context to our society today. Like Robin pointed out, these "acts of vengance" are still happening today, its just different because we are not completely socialized to partake.
ReplyDeleteI think looking at the way a mob works, its power to persuade, is very important to analyize and have our students connect to the society that they are apart of.
1. Connect The Lottery to Blood-Burning Moon.
ReplyDeleteBoth stories require a scapegoat; the tree has been turned into a box. The crop mentioned in “The Lottery” speaks of the “Strange Fruit” the song and poem allude to; Tom is the strange and bitter crop in “Blood Burning Moon” and the young boy is the fruit to be picked in the “Lottery”. This American way of doing things, the need for blood sacrifice, is designed to distract working people from the underlining current that it is not the sacrifice that produces the “good” crop but rather the numbness created by the ritual that robotically moves the people to work without questioning why. Like in T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” the people just “flow over London Bridge / so many, I had not thought death had undone so many….” Responding to “a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.” Showing up for life but living a sterile existence that depends on death. Distraction is needed to get people to work, pay taxes and sacrifice out question.
1. Connect The Lottery to Blood-Burning Moon.
ReplyDeleteBoth stories require a scapegoat; the tree has been turned into a box. The crop mentioned in “The Lottery” speaks of the “Strange Fruit” the song and poem allude to; Tom is the strange and bitter crop in “Blood Burning Moon” and the young boy is the fruit to be picked in the “Lottery”. This American way of doing things, the need for blood sacrifice, is designed to distract working people from the underlining current that it is not the sacrifice that produces the “good” crop but rather the numbness created by the ritual that robotically moves the people to work without questioning why. Like in T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” the people just “flow over London Bridge / so many, I had not thought death had undone so many….” Responding to “a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.” Showing up for life but living a sterile existence that depends on death. Distraction is needed to get people to work and pay taxes without question.
3. How is the artist in Kafka's "Hunger Artist" an artist?
ReplyDeleteKafka's story is so successful for many reasons - one being the obvious play on "starving artist." Even on the most base level, the hunger artist is an actual artist (performance art at its grittiest). As its mentioned in the prologue to the story, Kafka suffered much in his own life, and used his writing as an escape from the trials he endured since childhood. The hunger artist uses his art because he knows no other way - this is exemplified at the end of the story when he confesses he can't find anything to satisfy his appetite. With any true genius, there comes burden. The artist suffers only when others don't understand and appreciate his art, not when creating the art. Alone in his discovery and message, he remains depressed through the majority of the story. When he is finally allowed human touch, the girl shies away. Due malnutrition, he was not only skeletal, but most likely had an odor. The self-induced isolation is most likely the greatest sacrifice the hunger artist experiences in this story.
When I turned eighteen, I registered with the Selective Service System, like every other good eighteen year-old male citizen of the United States. Just like the lottery in Jackson’s story, there is no debating that the draft (if it is ever instituted) will be “fair.” At least, there is no debating that I will have the same chance of being drafted as any one else who is registered with the Selective Service. But what does fair mean, anyway? Females don’t have to register, so they can’t be drafted: is that fair? It certainly isn’t equal. Is the very idea of conscripted military service fair, or is it poisoned at the root? For me, this story highlights a difficulty with the word “fair.” Too many people, in the story and in our world, understand “fair” to mean “equal.” Mrs. Graves reminds Tessie that, “[a]ll of us took the same chance” (591). Not only does this assertion fail to console the woman who is about to be murdered, but it fails to justify the lottery on a moral level. There is a moral prejudice in society conflating equality with justice: seeming equality can mask all sorts of barbarism. Consider the “separate but equal” doctrine implemented by Brown v. Board of Education. Because the doctrine espoused “equality,” it was morally palatable to most of the public—especially white voters. But the stated “equality” of black and white educational systems masked the evil inherent in segregation (i.e, even if the schools WERE equal, it still wouldn’t be “fair” to segregate). Now, Affirmative Action programs in the work place and in educational systems try to make things “fair” by making them unequal! The only conclusion I can draw is that words like fair and equal are misused so hopelessly and continuously as to warrant their expulsion from language, effective immediately!
ReplyDelete“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” –Wittgenstein
I-am-Jack's-appreciation-for-the-Fight-Club-allusion!
ReplyDeleteThe intricacies of community is my favorite topic in American fiction. I especially liked Dr. Pruss' bringing in "Mending Wall" during class today to talk about in relation to the stories that we have been reading. In any community, what makes one fit in and belong is different--therefore, what is considered "fair" and "just" is subjective. This rolling, fluctuating morality is fascinating. The blindness of a larger society is seen, today, in Americans relationship with their government. We know that special interests are being served above others, yet we do nothing about it.
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