One. Reading Questions
1. What is “a small, good thing,” exactly? Hand-crafted individual care stripped of pretentiousness and bearing authenticity. “A small, good thing,” is a refreshing break from all the B.S. that saturates our lives every day. B.S. is insulting and manipulative and impersonal. People B.S. on autopilot.
2. What forces in the story are presented in stark contrast? The authenticity described above and bloated, impersonal egotistical pretentiousness. For the latter, see the description of the doctor on page 382.
3. Who consoles the parents for the loss of their son, the doctor or the baker? Why? The doctors read from scripts. They’re like robots. In contrast, the baker connects on a personal level. He offers them food, which is a metaphor.
4. How does Dr. Francis fail to provide empathy on pages 396 and 397? He makes the married couple leave when they should stay.
5. In contrast, how does the baker express authentic empathy on page 404? Rather than inflate who he is, he humbles himself and strips himself of all pretension or rather shows that he is completely absent of pretension. He talks about self-doubt and loneliness, not pleasant topics, but they’re real topics, unlike the B.S. dished out by the doctors.
Part Two. The Opposite of Empathy, the BE-ESSER
The story is about the dangers of being a B.S. Artist or a BE-ESSER
1. BE-ESSERS are often too intoxicated by their own BS and fail to see that others are not as impressed with it as they are. In other words, they suffer from an inflated self-esteem that has no correspondence to reality, what we call a narcissist.
2. BE-ESSERS often feel that they’re “superior BS” ability gives them license to do anything so that they have no boundaries.
3. BE-ESSERS can’t stop BSing even when the situation demands it.
4. BE-ESSERS tend to dig themselves into a deeper and deeper hole as they continue BSing.
5. BE-ESSERS are more concerned with image than substance. They cannot tolerate people having the “wrong impression” of them.
6. BE-ESSERS create a fictional persona that is so addicting they don’t know how to be real anymore and live the rest of their lives as compulsive liars.
7. BE-ESSERS can’t achieve intimacy because their whole life is a performance act.
8. BE-ESSERS are good at drumming up feelings of self-righteousness even when they are grossly wrong. In other words, they end up believing their own BS.
9. BE-ESSERS spend so much time puffing themselves up that they have too much pride to admit when they’re wrong.
10. BE-ESSERS rationalize their lies by justifying the means with the end.
See the book On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt in which he says that bullshit is worse than lying, that bullshit is defined by pretentiousness, misrepresentation and all the insidious things we use to puff ourselves up such as false modesty, sycophantism, omission of certain facts, slight exaggeration, etc. The B.S artist does not lie because for him there is no truth. Everything is B.S. The result of this attitude is nihilism.
Part Three. Journal Entry
Contrast two people you know, a BEE-ESSER and someone who embodies a “small, good thing.”
Part Four. Reviewing Your Essay Options
Option #1: The War Between the Ego and Empathy in Where I’m Calling From
In page one, profile someone who suffers “the type of swollen ego that results in solipsism and isolation from sanity, maturity, and the human race.” Then in your second page, profile someone who embodies the “sweet grace of empathy” and show how this person’s empathy connects him or her to others.
Then using an appropriate paragraph transition such as "Similarly" or "Likewise," you might start your thesis paragraph this way:
The above characters are antithetical to each other. Similarly, the stories pit characters at war between their egos and the liberation of empathy. Egotism in the stories (choose no fewer than 3) of Raymond Carver has grave consequences, which include _______________________, _________________________, ________________________, and ____________________________. In contrast, empathy has a healing effect on the downtrodden evidenced by _________________________, _______________________, __________________________, and ______________________________.
Your body paragraphs will correspond to the components you use to fill in the above blanks. Your conclusion will be one sentence, a brief, dramatic restatement of your thesis. Your final page, your Works Cited page, will show the sources you used fromWhere I’m Calling From, from my blog, from interviews, or from other helpful sources you find. Your Works Cited page and manuscript must conform to MLA format. Be sure to make your own catchy, creative title.
Option #2: Redemptive and Misguided Love
In a 5-page essay, contrast misguided love (“What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” “Feathers,” “Elephant”) and redemptive love (“A Small, Good Thing” and “Cathedral”) in the aforementioned stories.
Option #3: Symbiosis
In a 5-page essay explain the meaning of symbiosis or unhealthy mutual dependence in “Feathers” and “Elephant.” Before your comparison of the two stories, write a one-page introduction about an unhealthy symbiotic you’ve observed from your personal experience.
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.
Option #5: Solipsism
In 1 or 2 pages, profile someone you know who descended into the private hell of solipsism. Then compare in 3 or 4 pages the solipsism evident in Mel from "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" and the narrator (before his transformation) in "Cathedral."
Option #6: The Disaffected
In a page, profile someone you know who is disaffected. Then analyze the causes and effects of the disaffected characters in "Cathedral" and "Feathers."
Option #7: Compare the BS of Mel ("What We Talk About When We Talk About Love") and the doctors in "A Small, Good Thing." In your first page, profile a BS-er you know. Then in your thesis write that Mel and the doctors have nothing to redemptive to offer because their BS inevitably results in solipsism. The connection between BS and solipsism is evident by _____________, _________________, _______________, and _____________________.
1. BS makes us forget the truth.
2. BS makes us disrespect others.
3. BS makes us feed our ego.
4. BS creates a hole so deep that we can't get out of it.
Some Research Links
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Symbiosis According to Erich Fromm
Symbiosis and the Fear of Freedom
David Foster Wallace and Solipsism
Part Five. Reviewing Some Key Terms for Your Essay
Disaffected, adjective; Disaffection, noun:
To be disaffected is to be emotionally withdrawn, disengaged with the world, depressed. Disaffection is the condition of having given up on life and in essence being a member of the walking dead.
The Causes of Disaffection
1. You lack confidence to engage with others so you withdraw into yourself. Perhaps you were hurt in the past and don’t want to get hurt again, so you avoid people.
2. You get married more for convenience and to shelter you from the world.
3. You become addicted to your routines, which shut out the outside world.
4. You are reflexively hostile to anyone new because they represent a threat to your existence. You hate change.
5. You act like a churlish (grouchy) know-it-all who has all the answers, a person who dismisses everything as a “joke” and “utter nonsense.”
6. You are incapable of listening to others. The only thing you listen to the Cynical Voice constantly grumbling inside your head.
7. You are lethargic in your self-centeredness and numb yourself with various addictions in order to undergo your “slow death.”
8. You teach yourself that there is no hope for change or a better life so you succumb to learned helplessness.
Solipsism
Solipsism, failing to connect with others, is a form of insanity. The telling signs of solipsism are self-pity, resentment, and narcissism (you’re the only one who matters, your suffering is worse than everyone else’s, your grievances are more compelling to everyone else’s). Tell the students about the doctor whose wife left him and the student who never dated after 20 years. These are two examples of people who are withdrawn into themselves and cannot connect with the outside world and as such are insane.
Symbiosis
Symbiosis in the context of Raymond Carver's stories is a mutual interdependence between two people in which both parties become more and more crippled and dependent on each other. In other words, the one person becomes the other's addiction and vice versa. Some of the features of symbiosis are the following:
1. A sense of panic and anxiety when the two people are separated.
2. A compulsion for the two people to insulate themselves from the rest of the world.
3. A growing sense of weakness so that the individuals feel helpless with the other's presence.
4. Stagnation and monotony as the symbiotic pair become addicted to routine and ritual.
5. An unconscious resentment for the other since deep down both parties know that the other person is a disease and a pernicious influence.
Comments