Lesson #3: “Feathers” (332) by Raymond Carver

One. Reading Questions

1.  Explain the essay’s title. Iridescence, something that intoxicates, chimera, metaphor.

2.  What evidences the narrator’s empty existence on the first page? The monotony becomes "normal," that is it becomes something the husband and wife become used to. In fact, their life is one of hellish loneliness and depression, yet they're not aware of this fact. To be depressed on not know you're depressed is very dangerous because you do desperate things unconsciously such as pursue chimeras, illusions, projections of your own desires. 

3.  On page 333, what evidences the narrator’s dysfunctional marriage? The wife feels threatened by a simple dinner. How insular is she? What kind of stagnation are we talking about here?

4.  What reasons can we infer that the narrator and his wife don’t want children? Do children force parents into a social world? What else?

5.  How does “Feathers” repeat the same themes in “Cathedral”? See page 335. Openness vs. closed system of living. Edenic images similar to the paradise seen from the Cathedral. The Peacock is Otherness like the cathedral. The shimmering Otherness of the peacock is juxtaposed with the pedestrian banal working-class existence of Bud and his wife.

6.  How and why does Carver juxtapose the different economic classes in this story? Is he painting Fran as some anal-retentive middle-class suburbanite? See page 342

7.  How does Bud’s wish to fix his wife’s teeth repeat themes in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”? Living love vs. thinking about love.

8.  What significance is there in having an ugly baby in the story? 349, 350 The baby contrasts the peacock, the reality behind the chimera or ideal.

9.  Why did Fran and the narrator have a baby after visiting Bud and his wife? What were the motives? What were the effects of acting on this compulsion? 354, 355 Quick fix? Living vicariously through others?

10.               The story’s ending is about what? The reality of banality and the dream of Otherness? Looking to be razzle-dazzled by something that ends up being incurably ordinary? We seem to love an idea about life, marriage, having children, etc., but not the reality of it.

 

Part Two. The Chimera’s Definition, Causes and Effects

 

1.  The chimera is a mirage that draws us in slowly, starting with a burp or a trifle, a tease, an iridescent color that flashes before our eyes or it hits us over the head. In either case, it grows into an obsession and consumes all our energies, thoughts, and dreams.

2.  The chimera is based on unconscious longings for class ascent, acceptance, love, popularity, wealth, parental unconditional love (Rosebud), the Chanel Number Five Moment, distinction, proving our doubters that they were wrong.

3.  We project our fantasy onto a tabula rasa.

4.  Often the chimera is a panacea, a cure-all for all our woes.

5.  The Absolute Fallacy (success, fitness, perfection, perfect absolute relationship)

6.  The Transcendence Fallacy

7.  The Bitch Goddess Fallacy

8.  The inevitable despair of the chimera. George Bernard Shaw said there are two great tragedies in life: Not getting what we want and getting it.

9.  The cycle of ongoing chimeras, people who never learn and who go in circles, jumping from one chimera to the next.

10.               The paradox of the chimera: Chimeras destroy us but they also feed our dreams and in some ways give us strength, drive, motivation, and vitality that we otherwise wouldn’t have.

11.               The need for the chimera: We must have stars in the horizon for which he can row our oars.

 

Examples of chimera (have students come up with some):

 

1.  The low-carb diet or the South Beach Diet

2.  Yoga

3.  A Lexus IS350

4.  Viagra

5.  Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft

6.  Dianobol

7.  Having a six-pack

8.  Cosmetic surgery, botox or nose job or implants.

9.  G-Star Jeans (underground store for special jeans, not the ones you can buy at Nordstrom)

10.               the cognoscenti.

11.               Becoming famous

12.               Angelina Jolie; she’s more than a human. She’s become the great bitch goddess, every man’s dream and every woman’s nightmare. The fantasy of the seductress.

13.               Jennifer Aniston, the myth of the good girl, the myth of innocence.

14.               Celebrity of all kinds, an autograph, a sighting.

15.               Las Vegas

16.               Palos Verdes (my neighbors in Torrance are bitter that they haven’t moved to PV yet. Peevers.

17.               UCLA

18.               iPod

19.               Anything sold on the QVC network

20.               Marriage. Not all marriages but most are built on the Goody Box chimera. When I want a goody I reach into the goody box. But what happens when all the goodies run out.

21.               Me-Time. People who have lots of me-time are miserable.

 

1.  a panacea like a Fad diet

2.  a rite of passage like a car representing freedom, independence, and sexual attraction.

3.  a form of medication for depression or some deeply acute problem that you bandage with a simple solution; you buy a wardrobe to cover a restlessness and anxiety that haunts you.

4.  the myth of romantic absolute, fueled by crappy love songs.

5.  a childhood longing, like Christmas lights and Budweiser sign.

 

Part Three. 

Option #4: The Chimera

Compare Mel McGuiness’ chimera from “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” with the chimera that afflicts the couple in “Feathers.” Before you compare the chimeras from the two stories, begin with a one-page introduction in which you describe a chimera that once afflicted you or someone else you know. 

Journal Entry to Prepare for Chimera Essay

Write about a chimera you became obsessed with, how it propelled you into the world of solipsism, and how it crushed you with devastating disappointment.