Because Back in the World is not available, I have give you your assignment based on the following online stories. No book is required:
Bullet in the Brain, Say Yes, and Powder on PDF.
Because Back in the World is not available, I have give you your assignment based on the following online stories. No book is required:
Bullet in the Brain, Say Yes, and Powder on PDF.
Posted at 01:07 PM in Back in the World Lessons | Permalink | Comments (0)
Dear 1A students, the bad news is the book store can't get Back in the World by Tobias Wolff for another week. The good news is you can use the following Tobias Wolff stories for your Essay 1:
July 8: "Say Yes"(short enough to read in class)
July 9: "Bullet in the Brain"
July 10: "Firelight" and "Powder"
If you already purchased Back in the World, of course you can use the assigned readings. Either way is fine.
Also because the pool of available stories is smaller, you need only address two, not four, stories for your essay. Of course, you're free to address four stories if you want to.
Bullet in the Brain, Say Yes, and Powder on PDF.
Lesson on Critical Reading (adapted from The Arlington Reader, Fourth Edition)
What Is Critical Reading?
One. Identify the main idea, claim, or thesis in a piece of writing.
Two. Identify the form and structure. Essays use a variety of expository modes: contrast, comparison, argumentation, description, narrative, cause and effect analysis, extended definition, to name several.
Three. What problem is the writer trying to define?
Four. What bias, if any, does the writer bring to the topic?
Five. Notice the shifts from specificity to generality (induction) or generality to specificity (deduction).
Six. Notice the transitions used to establish a number of reasons (additionally), contrast (however, on the other hand, to the contrary), and comparison (similarly).
Seven. Use annotations, writing key ideas in the margins and underlining key words and phrases. Annotating increases your memory and reading comprehension. Using a pen is better than a highlighter because you can write your own specific response to what you’re reading whereas a highlighter is too fat to make comments. Another advantage of using a pen is that you might come up with ideas for your essay response, even a thesis, and you don’t want to forget that material.
Eight. Look up unfamiliar words to build your vocabulary and increase your understanding of the piece.
Nine. Identify the writer’s style and tone (voice). The voice could be conversational, supercilious (arrogant), morally outraged, friendly, condescending, ironic, etc.
Ten. Notice if the writer is being implicit, using implication or suggestion, rather than being direct and explicit in the expression of the main idea.
Eleven. Ask if the writer considered opposing views fairly before coming to his or her conclusion.
Twelve. What political point of view, if any, informs the piece?
Thirteen. How strong is the evidence in the piece that is used to support the writer’s claim?
Fourteen. What is the intended readership? Educated adults? Experts? Children?
Find the main idea in this short piece about consumer shopping habits.
Essay 1: Back in the World by Tobias Wolff, 150 points
Option One
We read in Judith Shulvit's Slate book review of Our Story Begins the following:
To read a collection of Wolff's work that spans the years is to realize that he is obsessed with the act of lying. Asked in an interview why so many of his characters lie, Wolff replied, "The world is not enough, maybe? … To lie is to say the thing that is not, so there's obviously an unhappiness with what is, a discontent." A recent outbreak of faked memoirs has set off a storm of outraged pontification about why people pass off false histories as their own, so it's satisfying to read about liars who lie for interesting reasons rather than the usual despicable ones. Wolff is, in fact, a genius at locating the truths revealed by lies—the ancient and holy tongues, you might say, the otherwise inexpressible inner realities that lies give voice to.
In a 5-page paper, typed and double-spaced, develop a thesis that analyzes the characters' need to lie in Tobias Wolff's collection Back in the World. Address at least 4 stories in your essay. For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Option 2
In one of his darker moods, our instructor McMahon said this about the human race:
"We are a lost and sorry lot, hopelessly imprisoned by self-deception: false narratives we rely on to define our identities; tantalizing chimeras that assuage the boredom of our banal existence, and willed ignorance that prevents us from seeing the grotesqueries roiling just underneath the facade that we present to the world and to ourselves. As a result, we are crazed and deformed creatures forever lost in a world of solipsism."
In a 5-page essay, analyze McMahon's remarks in the context of no fewer than 4 stories from Tobias Wolff's collection Back in the World.
For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Option 3
One camp of readers argue that Wolff's fiction is redemptive in that its characters are delivered from their delusions through life-changing epiphanies that propel them back into the world of reality and personal accountability. Another camp of readers say the epiphanies come too little too late and only serve to speak to the characters' lives, which can be defined by endless cycles of futility and as such Wolff's stories are not redemptive but nihilistic.
What camp are you in? Develop an argumentative thesis that defends your position in a 5-page essay. For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Your Works Cited page and manuscript must conform to MLA format. Be sure to make your own catchy, creative title.
If you want to use another structure, that is fine. The above is merely a suggestion. For example, look at Choice B:
Back in the World, the title, refers to leaving our lies and delusions.
Define the "back in the world" experience to explain the book's title by comparing at least two stories in which characters awaken from their Jahiliyyah (prolonged period of ignorance and darkness) and go "back into the world."
In your first page, you might write a personal narrative of such a "back in the world" experience, followed by a transition to your thesis explaining what such an experience entails. The body paragraphs would compare two or more stories.
Why irony is an important part of going back into the world or escaping the lies that define our life? Because irony is about insight.
Irony is a quality that requires maturity and wisdom and is so complicated it requires a guide. It's the ability to have insight and go past the common and superficial assumptions most people have when they respond to certain situations.
Irony is the ability to the see the complexity of an occurrence and thus not overreact to it as "good" or "bad."
A person who has a "sense of irony" has wisdom and tends to be more even keeled, avoiding emotional ups and downs. Additionally, a person with a sense of irony has a wry sense of humor, which is neither cynical or overly optimistic, but a strange mix of both.
Irony is, specifically, being able to see certain contradictions when others cannot see these contradictions.
There is no single definition of irony, but here is one that is applicable to Wolff's short story collection:
Irony is a reversal of expectations born from hidden contradictions in a person's character.
Leo goes on a journey in which the more he sees his life contradictions, the more he matures and emerges from his false self to his real self. The missing person is no more.
Types of Irony
1. The Great Reversal or Plot Irony: A reversal that results in the opposite of our expectations like a car death after wearing seatbelt. This is one of the most common forms of irony.
A vegetarian becomes a world-famous butcher.
In all romantic comedies, the potential lovers hate each other at the beginning of the film.
In 10cc's famous song, "I'm Not in Love," the persona tries to convince himself, and the woman, that he is not in love but the more he says this mantra the more he reveals that he is helplessly in love.
A man hates academia and education and he becomes a professor.
A woman grows up hating dogs, then falls in love with them only to discover that she has developed a dog allergy.
2. Serendipitous Irony: The more we deviate from our original plan, the better the outcome. A botched play on the athletic field becomes a huge score.
3. Faustian Irony: The more we think we’re rising and succeeding in life, the more we are actually falling as we become crushed under the weight of our own vanity, which blinds us and leaves us vulnerable to failure.
4. Idle Irony: The better our life becomes the more we are compelled by boredom to sabotage our happiness. In other words people often cause problems that don’t really exist. And soon they create very real problems out of nothing.
5. Pathological Irony: Man shoots foot off to get rid of a wart.
6. Sarcastic Irony: Saying one thing and meaning an other.
7. Satanic Irony: A greedy man enjoys a long, healthy life while his innocent victims die cruel deaths and their lives are short. This type of irony refutes notions of justice.
8. Narcissistic Irony: searchers for the self lose their selves while people who don’t think about their selves find their selves. Someone goes into therapy and becomes even crazier. Or the example of Stalingrad in which the selfish die and the helpful live.
9. Jungian Irony: The more extreme we develop a facet of our personality the more extreme we develop its opposite. The macho man is also becoming more and more of a baby.
10. Materialistic Irony: You buy an expensive fur coat but the weather is forever hot so you can’t wear it like the old lady in Buenos Aires.
You fight tooth and claw to get rich, your business partner murders you, and your wife and children are left without the provider whose millions are hidden in bank accounts, which the wife cannot access.
11. Short-sighted irony: You workout to impress a girl but she’s turned off by big muscles. You were looking at what you want, not at what she wants. A woman overdressed and wears too much make-up and men are terrified of her.
12. Ironic Irony: You try to be ironic because you think it’s cool but you come across as a fake and as a poser.
13. Corruptive Irony: The more we get our hands dirty in the mess of life, the more pure we become; the more we stay away from the filth, the more contaminated we become by our lack of involvement, which is a form of narcissism. This is the major theme of the story “The Missing Person.” Leo finds love and redemption while working as a hustler in Las Vegas. “It’s all right. I’m here.” These are the final words and show that he’s not the missing person anymore.
14. Bureacratic Irony: A chef wears hair net but has long beard with dried filth in it. We pay attention to rules but forget common sense.
15. Relationship Irony: The "weaker" person is only playing the role of being weak but actually is in control of the relationship like the wife in "Say Yes."
The Lie of Living in a Symbiotic Relationship in "Say Yes"
Why Do People Lie?
To feel good about a hopeless situation that would otherwise crush us with despair
To have a heroic self-image that buffers us from the brutal truth of who we are
To hope for a better world that medicates us from the despair of our current dilemma or life trap
To be in denial about a horrible situation that we don't know how to address
To make others believe in our lies in order to gain their alliance
To repeat a lie over and over so that it becomes our truth
As you read "Say Yes," try to answer these questions:
In "Say Yes" what is the disparity between the husband's self-image and the personality he shows us, the reader?
How does the marriage in "Say Yes" evidence an unhealthy symbiotic relationship?
The 7 Qualities of Symbiosis
1. Two weak people merge to hide and reinforce their flaws.
2. Two people become mutually dependent on the other in order to stop changing, growing, maturing, and fulfilling their potential.
3. Two people use each other as a crutch and an excuse for their stagnation in life.
4. One person gets stronger and stronger or so he thinks while the other gets weaker and weaker. In truth, both get weaker and weaker because bother are more and more dependent on the other.
5. Two people stay together, not because of love, but because of weakness, hatred, and fear.
6. In a symbiosis, both people are blind or fail to admit how dependent they are on the other. On page 201 we see that Pete has a dream about Donald in which Pete is blind.
7. To use a psychological cliché, both parties of the symbiosis are called “enablers,” that is they perpetuate each other’s dysfunctions.
McMahon Grammar Exercise: Identifying Phrases, Independent Clauses, and Dependent Clauses
Identify the group of words in bold type as phrase, independent clause, or dependent clause.
One. Toward the monster’s palace, we see a white marble fountain jettisoning chocolate fudge all over the other giants.
Two. Before going to school, Gerard likes to make sure he’s packed his chocolate chip cookies and bagels.
Three. Because Jack’s love of eating pizza every night cannot be stopped, he finds his cardio workouts to be rather worthless.
Four. Maria finds the Lexus preferable to the BMW because of the Lexus’ lower repair costs.
Five. Greg does not drive at night because he suffers from poor nocturnal eyesight.
Six. Whenever Greg drives past HomeTown Buffet, he is overcome with depression and nausea.
Seven. People who eat at Cinnabon, according to Louis C.K., always look miserable over their poor life decisions.
Eight. After eating at Cinnabon and HomeTown Buffet, Gary has to eat a bottle of antacids.
Nine. Towards the end of the date, Gary decided to ask Maria if she’d care for another visit to HomeTown Buffet.
Ten. Whenever Maria is in the presence of a gluttonous gentleman, she withdraws into her shell.
Eleven. Greg watched Maria recoil into her shell while biting her nails.
Twelve. Greg watched Maria recoil into her private universe while she bit her nails.
Thirteen. Eating at all-you-can-eat buffets will expand the circumference of your waistline.
Fourteen. Larding your essay with grammatical errors will result in a low grade.
Fifteen. My favorite pastime is larding my essay with grammatical errors.
Sixteen. Larding my body with chocolate chunk peanut butter cookies followed by several gallons of milk, I wondered if I should skip dinner that evening.
Seventeen. After contemplating the benefits of going on a variation of the Paleo diet, I decided I was at peace being a fat man with a strong resemblance to the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Eighteen. In the 1970s few people would consider eating bugs as their main source of protein although today world-wide food shortages have compelled a far greater percentage of the human race to entertain this unpleasant possibility.
Nineteen. Because of increased shortages in worldwide animal protein, more and more people are looking to crickets, grasshoppers, and grubs as possible complete protein amino acid alternatives.
Twenty. The percentage of people getting married in recent years has significantly declined as an economic malaise has deflated confidence in the viability of sustaining a long-term marriage.
Twenty-one. Before you decide to marry someone, consider two things: your temperament and your economic prospects.
Twenty-two. To understand the pitfalls of getting married prematurely is to embark on the road to greater wisdom.
Twenty-three. To know me is to love me.
Twenty-four. To languish in the malignant juices of self-pity after breaking up with your girlfriend is to fall down the rabbit hole of moral dissolution and narcissism.
Twenty-five. Having considered the inevitable disappointment of being rich, I decided not to rob a bank.
Twenty-six. Watching TV on a sticky vinyl sofa all day, I noticed I was developing bedsores.
Twenty-seven. While I watched TV for twenty consecutive hours, I began to wonder if life was passing me by.
Twenty-eight. Under the bridge where a swarm of mosquitos gathered, the giant belched.
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Links for Parallelism
Part One: 3 Traps of Life As They Are Embodied in the Story's Characters
Trap One: Hopeless Despair: The doctor who wouldn't let go of his divorce pain and walked around an empty house.
In a similar trap, Charlie feels like a nonentity, a cipher, a nobody. He is looking for a sense of place, purpose, distinction, and belonging. He is looking for hope yet he feels like an outsider, a young man whose writing aspirations evidence a life of futility and vanity. As a result, he is overcome by the paralysis of self-pity. His hope lies in his passion and hunger for literature and writing in general. By the story's end, he identifies with the ship moving through the fog, an act of faith and desire kept alive.
Trap Two: Vainglorious Pride: A woman died because she wouldn't take off her body-length mink coat in Buenos Aries, an an outdoor bazaar.
Hipsters say "we're educated, hip, cosmopolitans, not like those close-minded provencial tribalists," and in doing so these hipsters become the very tribalists they claim to despise.
Pride always results in blindness.
Audrey and George, the two illicit lovers embody pride and vanity. They feel morally and spiritually superior to the man they’ve betrayed, Truman. They are in fact blinded by their vanity, which is ironic in the context of Miguel whose passions make him blind.
Audrey and George think they're better educated than most; they think they're special; as a result, they are blind to their vanity.
Trap Three: Self-Satisfied Mediocrity and Complacency: The couple in Torrance who have separate TVs and pills and fast-food refuse on their porch.
Truman is a man who evidences a lack of curiosity regarding anything beyond his small circle of interest; he shows a certain philistinism (disdain for arts) and is so lax and self-satisfied with his current station in life that he is blind to the fact that his wife Audrey his having an affair with his “friend” George.
Part Two. Thematic Elements
Fog is pervasive in the story. Fog appears to represent blindness, a struggle to see.
All the characters are blind in some fashion or other and this blindess brings them to one of Life's 3 Traps. Like a typical college student, Charlie is blind to his identity, his niche, his sense of belonging; Audrey and George are blind to their vanity that makes them repulsive and obnoxious; Truman is blind to his complacency that stagnates him and makes him fail to see his wife is venturing into adulterous waters; Miguel is blinded by fanatical love.
Irony
Story’s irony is that in the midst of all this blindness and fog there is hope: All the characters are starting their lives over. A new start suggests rebirth and the possibility of seeing things again.
Jahiliyya, this is the Arabic term for a long, protracted period of ignorance, the dark ages, if you will. Every character is stuck in the Jahiliyya, as we all are at one period in our lives.
Charlie is blind to his own life but he becomes the Third Eye of the love triangle, witnessing in an almost voyeuristic fashion the sad truth that Truman is about to confront.
Final paragraph shows a lobster flailing its pincers, perhaps a sign of desire. Perhaps our “salvation” is staying hungry, keeping our passion, as a sort of antidote from complacency and vanity and despair.
Part Three. Class Activity for Reviewing Irony in the Stories and Developing Your Thesis
Explain specific, distinguishing characteristics for irony for the following stories and then develop a thesis that allows you to put ALL the distinguishing characteristics for your research paper:
"Rich Brother" (example: The more assured Pete is in his identity as the "rich brother" the more he remains blind to his essential weakness: He is an emotional cripple, incapable of change, incapable of maturity and humility, and incapable of freeing himself from his sick addiction to playing the role of Mother to his brother Donald.)
"The Missing Person"
"Say Yes"
"Desert Breakdown, 1968"
"Our Story Begins"
Review of Essay Assignment
In a 6-page research paper, use no fewer than 3 stories from the book to write an extended definition of the word irony. You must chronicle an ironic experience you had in a personal narrative for the first 2 pages.
Some thesis statements to avoid:
Wolff's stories are rich in irony.
Irony really hits the characters with a wallop.
I really like all the irony in Wolff's stories.
We learned that irony is part of seeing the world in a new way and that once you see irony, really see it, you can't go back to your pre-ironic existence.
I feel better about myself now that I learned the definition of irony and have decided to change my major.
Understanding irony in Wolff's stories really opens your eyes to life's deeper truths and now that I've read this book I'm a better person. Thank you, McMahon.
Understanding irony makes me feel special, like I'm a member of an elite club, but the downside is now I feel lonely because so few people understand life the way I do. McMahon, you ruined my life.
I've studied irony in McMahon's class and read all the stories but now I'm more confused about irony more than ever and will probably drop McMahon's class and take 1A from another instructor.
Irony is not really that big of a deal. I see it everywhere. I don't see why McMahon has to make a big production of it. Frankly, I'm bored with the subject of irony and am ready to give up on McMahon.
Studying irony makes you a better person so spend a lot of time studying it and you'll see how much better your life is.
I don't believe in irony. It doesn't exist. It's just a cynical attitude McMahon has about life and he's trying to infect us with his cynical attitude. I resent him and I resent the class. At the end of the semester I'm filing a complaint.
Signal Phrases to Integrate Quotations into Your Essay
Essential and Nonessential Clauses
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Lesson on Using Sources (adapted from The Arlington Reader, fourth edition)
We use sources to establish credibility and to provide evidence for our claim. Because we want to establish credibility, the sources have to be credible as well.
To be credible, the sources must be
Current or up to date: to verify that the material is still relevant and has all the latest and possibly revised research and statistical data.
Authoritative: to insure that your sources represent experts in the field of study. Their studies are peer-reviewed and represent the gold standard, meaning they are the sources of record that will be referred to in academic debate and conversation.
Depth: The source should be detailed to give a comprehensive grasp of the subject.
Objectivity: The study is relatively free of agenda and bias or the writer is upfront about his or her agenda so that there are no hidden objectives. If you’re consulting a Web site that is larded with ads or a sponsor, then there may be commercial interests that compromise the objectivity.
Integrating Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism
Summarizing Sources
“A summary restates the main idea of a passage in concise terms” (314).
A typical summary is one or two sentences.
A summary does not contain your opinions or analysis.
Paraphrasing Sources
A paraphrase, which is longer than a summary, contains more details and examples. Sometimes you need to be more specific than a summary to make sure your reader understands you.
A paraphrase does not include your opinions or analysis.
Quoting Sources
Quoting sources means you are quoting exactly what you are referring to in the text with no modifications, which might twist the author’s meaning.
You should avoid long quotations as much as possible.
Quote only when necessary. Rely on summary and paraphrase before resorting to direct quotes.
A good time to use a specific quote is when it’s an opposing point that you want to refute.
Using Signal Phrases or Identifying Tag to Introduce Summary, Paraphrase, and Quoted Material
According to Jeff McMahon, the grading rubric in English classes is used in such a way by instructors that soon there will be no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” professor. They’ll all be the same.
Jeff McMahon notes that the grading rubric in English classes is used in such a way by instructors that soon there will be no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” professor. They’ll all be the same.
The grading rubric in English classes is used in such a way by instructors, Jeff McMahon observes, that soon there will be no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” professor.
The grading rubric in English classes is used in such a way by instructors that soon there will be no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” professor, Jeff McMahon points out.
Common identifying tags (put link here)
Essay 1: Back in the World by Tobias Wolff, 150 points
Option One
We read in Judith Shulvit's Slate book review of Our Story Begins the following:
To read a collection of Wolff's work that spans the years is to realize that he is obsessed with the act of lying. Asked in an interview why so many of his characters lie, Wolff replied, "The world is not enough, maybe? … To lie is to say the thing that is not, so there's obviously an unhappiness with what is, a discontent." A recent outbreak of faked memoirs has set off a storm of outraged pontification about why people pass off false histories as their own, so it's satisfying to read about liars who lie for interesting reasons rather than the usual despicable ones. Wolff is, in fact, a genius at locating the truths revealed by lies—the ancient and holy tongues, you might say, the otherwise inexpressible inner realities that lies give voice to.
In a 5-page paper, typed and double-spaced, develop a thesis that analyzes the characters' need to lie in Tobias Wolff's collection Back in the World. Address at least 4 stories in your essay. For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Option 2
In one of his darker moods, our instructor McMahon said this about the human race:
"We are a lost and sorry lot, hopelessly imprisoned by self-deception: false narratives we rely on to define our identities; tantalizing chimeras that assuage the boredom of our banal existence, and willed ignorance that prevents us from seeing the grotesqueries roiling just underneath the facade that we present to the world and to ourselves. As a result, we are crazed and deformed creatures forever lost in a world of solipsism."
In a 5-page essay, analyze McMahon's remarks in the context of no fewer than 4 stories from Tobias Wolff's collection Back in the World.
For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Option 3
One camp of readers argue that Wolff's fiction is redemptive in that its characters are delivered from their delusions through life-changing epiphanies that propel them back into the world of reality and personal accountability. Another camp of readers say the epiphanies come too little too late and only serve to speak to the characters' lives, which can be defined by endless cycles of futility and as such Wolff's stories are not redemptive but nihilistic.
What camp are you in? Develop an argumentative thesis that defends your position in a 5-page essay. For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
By "lies" in Tobias Wolff's fiction, what do we mean?
direct lies
creating a parallel universe (what does that mean?)
delusions
narrative and counternarrative (the story people have about us and the story we tell ourselves)
chimera (the mirage that becomes our obsession)
All of the above are forms of escape.
What are the characters escaping?
learned helplessness
feeling beaten down
feeling threatened by the narratives people tell about ourselves and then we want to control the narrative
monotony and boredom with life: the existential vacuum
social conformity feels like a prison and we need escape
What patterns do we see in the characters?
Escape is alternated by a crash landing to reality.
Look at centrifugal and centripetal character development for the last essay option.
Review of Irony
McMahon's definition:
Irony is a reversal of expectations that penetrate through our typical superficial grasp of reality so that we can comprehend life's often grotesque contradictions, which defy tragedy, comedy, pathos, laughter, tears, etc.
Irony creates a sort of mystical detachment, a Third Eye, looking wryly at life's bitter-sweet paradoxes.
Research Links for Irony
3 Types of Irony and What Irony Is Not
Irony of the Story's Title
Pete is not rich at all. He is impoverished and emaciated by an ongoing sibling rivalry with his brother that has evolved into a symbiosis, a mutual dependence, rendering both brothers morally bankrupt.
Pete is also poor in another regard: He cannot change. He is a centripetal character (circle goes inward) as opposed to a centrifugal character (circle goes outward).
Irony in the Story
Pete is rich but he's poor in many ways.
Pete hates his brother Donald for stealing Mom's attention and ends up having to be Donald's mother.
Pete thinks he hates Donald's dependence on him, but in reality Pete is dependent on Donald's dependence on him. He is so poor that he has little else to fill his void. We can call this symbiotic irony.
Donald hates Pete for being strong than him but Donald makes himself weaker to be dependent on Pete and Donald knows this dependence torments Pete. In other words, Donald bites his nose to spite his face.
Donald sees himself as a generous person but in reality he only "shares" his brother's money.
Irony in "The Missing Person": Corruptive irony, plot irony, narcissistic irony.
Irony in "Say Yes": Jungian irony: the more the wife becomes submissive to the husband, the more she takes control over him; Marital irony: the longer the married couple lives together, the less they know each other until they are strangers.
Sample Thesis
"Say Yes," "The Missing Person," and "The Rich Brother" explore ironies that reveal the deepest and darkest secrets of the character's souls. These ironies include Jungian, marital, symbiotic, corruptive, and narcissistic versions, all of which give us merciless, unscathing character studies.
Part Two. Lexicon
1. Decrepitude (weakened, broken down, the condition of both brothers)
2. hubris "Grow up. Buy a Mercedes."
3. braggadocio
4. culpability
5. symbiosis: two people who have developed a sick mutual dependence on the other until they become emotional cripples.
6. passive-aggressive: showing your anger in cowardly, back-handed, insidious ways.
7. scapegoat
8. sibling rivalry
9. stagnation
10. status quo
11. spite—an impulse for revenge that hurts you more than the person you hate.
12. Insanity— doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (Albert Einstein)
13. centrifugal
14. centripetal
Part Three. Pete’s 6 Moral Flaws
1. He worships money, seeing it as a solution for everything.
2. He suffers from a brand of obnoxious smug pride rooted in his wealth. (“Grow up and get a Mercedes.”) In fact, Pete is not rich at all as evidenced by the story’s ironic title “The Rich Brother.” Pete in fact is anything but “rich.” He is impoverished by his condition of helplessness and moral decrepitude. Pete covers his flaws with a pose of hubris and braggadocio.
3. He sees things only at face value without digging deeper because he is afraid of what he will find.
4. He is afraid to confront his culpability for the past, namely, his role in hating on his brother Donald through his rivalry and blind ambition.
5. Pete is a liar to his brother and to himself. For example on page 197 he lies about his dreams, claiming he only dreams about sex and money when in fact he is haunted by guilt for the sins he once committed against Donald. On 199 and 200 we find that Pete tried to kill his brother after an operation because he was jealous of the way his mother doted on Donald. Ironically, now it’s Pete who dotes on Donald and in doing so he assures that he keeps Donald crippled, which is to his advantage, or so he seeks.
6. He is afraid to confront his current role as Donald’s “mother,” which is ironic since he in a way attempted to steal Donald’s mother from him. In other words, Pete is dependent on Donald being dependent on him. What we have here, then, are two brothers trapped in a snake grip of hatred from which they can never let go. In psychology this is called “symbiosis.”
Part Four. Donald’s 6 Moral Flaws.
1. Driven by spite and cowardice, Donald sabotages his own life in order to make Pete bail him out again and again and again. This is Donald’s cowardly and passive-aggressive way of punishing Pete for what he did to him during childhood. Donald embodies the saying, “Bite my nose to spite your face.”
2. He uses religion to judge others while ignoring his own egregious flaws. In other words, Donald is a pompous ass.
3. Donald is stuck in a life of stagnation though he deludes himself with clichés that he is “breaking his pattern” (192)
4. Donald is stuck on a sense of lugubrious identity known as “victimization.” He is both overcome by spite and self-pity. As a result of seeing himself as a victim, he has reached a point of no return in which he is both undateable and unemployable.
5. As long as Donald can scapegoat Pete for all his problems, he never has to grow up and take accountability for his own actions.
6. Donald is big on generosity but only with his brother’s money, not his own.
Part Five. The 7 Qualities of Symbiosis
1. Two weak people merge to hide and reinforce their flaws.
2. Two people become mutually dependent on the other in order to stop changing, growing, maturing, and fulfilling their potential.
3. Two people use each other as a crutch and an excuse for their stagnation in life.
4. One person gets stronger and stronger or so he thinks while the other gets weaker and weaker. In truth, both get weaker and weaker because bother are more and more dependent on the other.
5. Two people stay together, not because of love, but because of weakness, hatred, and fear.
6. In a symbiosis, both people are blind or fail to admit how dependent they are on the other. On page 201 we see that Pete has a dream about Donald in which Pete is blind.
7. To use a psychological cliché, both parties of the symbiosis are called “enablers,” that is they perpetuate each other’s dysfunctions.
Defining Irony for Your Thesis
"The Missing Person" and "The Rich Brother" affirm that irony is ______________ evidenced by __________, _____________, ______________, and ___________________.
inverted forms of self-discovery
symbiotic stagnation to fill the void
impoverishment through substitution
law of spite
Irony is part of the Third Eye that explains the title “Back in the World”: Irony brings us back into the world from our intoxicating illusions.
To go "back in the world" means to leave one's delusions and re-connect with reality, often a shocking experience.
Often a crisis makes us go back in the world. Sometimes the back in the world is sudden like an epiphany or a brilliant vision. Other times, it is gradual.
We see a photo of ourselves and realize we've gained weight.
Our wife tape-records our sleeping and we realize we have a lethal case of snoring.
Our credit card is taken from a merchant and we realize we have self-destructive spending habits.
Large men with scary dogs show up at our house demanding money and we realize we have a gambling problem.
You see a video of a news report of you,a skeletal girl, being taken on a stretcher to a hospital and you realize you have an eating disorder.
Women no longer return your calls and you realize your life as a Pompous Ass Playboy have caught up with you.
You see your wife having animated and engaging conversation with other people, both men and women, and this conversation has far more depth and energy than exists when you talk to her and you realize you need to get stop watching ESPN and start paying attention to your wife.
You make a hyped-up production about leaving Cleveland to play basketball for the Miami Heat and now most everyone in the world wants to see you fail. You overplayed your popularity card and it backfired.
Out of sibling rivalry and jealousy, you tried to kill your brother when he was little and even though your whole life is committed to hiding your guilt and sense of failure by being filthy rich, you realize your are forever responsible for the damage you've done to him and you must forever share his burdens.
Seeing the irony behind a situation is another way of going back into the world.
Links for Parallelism
Part One: 3 Traps of Life As They Are Embodied in the Story's Characters
Trap One: Hopeless Despair: The doctor who wouldn't let go of his divorce pain and walked around an empty house.
In a similar trap, Charlie feels like a nonentity, a cipher, a nobody. He is looking for a sense of place, purpose, distinction, and belonging. He is looking for hope yet he feels like an outsider, a young man whose writing aspirations evidence a life of futility and vanity. As a result, he is overcome by the paralysis of self-pity. His hope lies in his passion and hunger for literature and writing in general. By the story's end, he identifies with the ship moving through the fog, an act of faith and desire kept alive.
Trap Two: Vainglorious Pride: A woman died because she wouldn't take off her body-length mink coat in Buenos Aries, an an outdoor bazaar.
Hipsters say "we're educated, hip, cosmopolitans, not like those close-minded provincial tribalists," and in doing so these hipsters become the very tribalists they claim to despise.
Pride always results in blindness.
Audrey and George, the two illicit lovers embody pride and vanity. They feel morally and spiritually superior to the man they’ve betrayed, Truman. They are in fact blinded by their vanity, which is ironic in the context of Miguel whose passions make him blind.
Audrey and George think they're better educated than most; they think they're special; as a result, they are blind to their vanity.
Trap Three: Self-Satisfied Mediocrity and Complacency: The couple in Torrance who have separate TVs and pills and fast-food refuse on their porch.
Truman is a man who evidences a lack of curiosity regarding anything beyond his small circle of interest; he shows a certain philistinism (disdain for arts) and is so lax and self-satisfied with his current station in life that he is blind to the fact that his wife Audrey his having an affair with his “friend” George.
Part Two. Thematic Elements
Fog is pervasive in the story. Fog appears to represent blindness, a struggle to see.
All the characters are blind in some fashion or other and this blindess brings them to one of Life's 3 Traps. Like a typical college student, Charlie is blind to his identity, his niche, his sense of belonging; Audrey and George are blind to their vanity that makes them repulsive and obnoxious; Truman is blind to his complacency that stagnates him and makes him fail to see his wife is venturing into adulterous waters; Miguel is blinded by fanatical love.
Irony
Story’s irony is that in the midst of all this blindness and fog there is hope: All the characters are starting their lives over. A new start suggests rebirth and the possibility of seeing things again.
Jahiliyya, this is the Arabic term for a long, protracted period of ignorance, the dark ages, if you will. Every character is stuck in the Jahiliyya, as we all are at one period in our lives.
Charlie is blind to his own life but he becomes the Third Eye of the love triangle, witnessing in an almost voyeuristic fashion the sad truth that Truman is about to confront.
Final paragraph shows a lobster flailing its pincers, perhaps a sign of desire. Perhaps our “salvation” is staying hungry, keeping our passion, as a sort of antidote from complacency and vanity and despair.
Part Three. Class Activity for Reviewing Irony in the Stories and Developing Your Thesis
Explain specific, distinguishing characteristics for irony for the following stories and then develop a thesis that allows you to put ALL the distinguishing characteristics for your research paper:
"Rich Brother" (example: The more assured Pete is in his identity as the "rich brother" the more he remains blind to his essential weakness: He is an emotional cripple, incapable of change, incapable of maturity and humility, and incapable of freeing himself from his sick addiction to playing the role of Mother to his brother Donald.)
"The Missing Person"
"Say Yes"
"Desert Breakdown, 1968"
"Our Story Begins"
Review of Essay Assignment
In a 6-page research paper, use no fewer than 3 stories from the book to write an extended definition of the word irony. You must chronicle an ironic experience you had in a personal narrative for the first 2 pages.
Some thesis statements to avoid:
Wolff's stories are rich in irony.
Irony really hits the characters with a wallop.
I really like all the irony in Wolff's stories.
We learned that irony is part of seeing the world in a new way and that once you see irony, really see it, you can't go back to your pre-ironic existence.
I feel better about myself now that I learned the definition of irony and have decided to change my major.
Understanding irony in Wolff's stories really opens your eyes to life's deeper truths and now that I've read this book I'm a better person. Thank you, McMahon.
Understanding irony makes me feel special, like I'm a member of an elite club, but the downside is now I feel lonely because so few people understand life the way I do. McMahon, you ruined my life.
I've studied irony in McMahon's class and read all the stories but now I'm more confused about irony more than ever and will probably drop McMahon's class and take 1A from another instructor.
Irony is not really that big of a deal. I see it everywhere. I don't see why McMahon has to make a big production of it. Frankly, I'm bored with the subject of irony and am ready to give up on McMahon.
Studying irony makes you a better person so spend a lot of time studying it and you'll see how much better your life is.
I don't believe in irony. It doesn't exist. It's just a cynical attitude McMahon has about life and he's trying to infect us with his cynical attitude. I resent him and I resent the class. At the end of the semester I'm filing a complaint.
Signal Phrases to Integrate Quotations into Your Essay
Essential and Nonessential Clauses
McMahon Grammar Exercise: Essential and Nonessential Clauses
Circle the relative clause and indicate if it’s essential with a capital E or nonessential with a capital N. Then use commas where necessary.
One. I’m looking for a sugar substitute that doesn’t have dangerous side effects.
Two. Sugar substitutes which often contain additives can wreak havoc on the digestive and nervous system.
Three. The man who trains in the gym every day for five hours is setting himself up for a serious muscle injury.
Four. Cars that operate on small turbo engines don’t last as long as non-turbo automobiles.
Five. Tuna which contains high amounts of mercury should only be eaten once or twice a week.
Six. The store manager who took your order has been arrested for fraud.
Seven. The store manager Ron Cousins who is now seventy-five years old is contemplating retirement.
Eight. Magnus Mills’ Restraint of Beasts which is my favorite novel was runner up for the Booker Prize.
Nine. Parenthood which is a sort of priesthood for which there is no pay or appreciation raises stress and cortisol levels.
Ten. I need to find a college that specializes in my actuarial math major.
Eleven. UCLA which has a strong actuarial math program is my first choice.
Twelve. My first choice of car is the Lexus which was awarded top overall quality honors from Consumer Reports.
Thirteen. Mangoes which sometimes cause a rash on my lips and chin area are my favorite fruit.
Fourteen. A strange man whom I’ve never known came up to me and offered to give me his brand new Mercedes.
Fifteen. My girlfriend who was showing off her brand new red dress arrived two hours late to the birthday party.
Sixteen. Students who meticulously follow the MLA format rules have a greater chance at success.
Seventeen. The student who tormented himself with the thesis lesson for six hours found himself more confused than before he started.
Eighteen. There are several distinctions between an analytical and argumentative thesis which we need to familiarize ourselves with before we embark on the essay assignment.
Nineteen. The peach that has a worm burrowing through its rotted skin should probably be tossed in the garbage.
Twenty. Peaches, which I love to eat by the bucketful are on sale at the farmer’s market.
Twenty-one. Baseball which used to be America’s pastime is declining in popularity.
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Lesson on Critical Reading (adapted from The Arlington Reader, Fourth Edition)
What Is Critical Reading?
One. Identify the main idea, claim, or thesis in a piece of writing.
Two. Identify the form and structure. Essays use a variety of expository modes: contrast, comparison, argumentation, description, narrative, cause and effect analysis, extended definition, to name several.
Three. What problem is the writer trying to define?
Four. What bias, if any, does the writer bring to the topic?
Five. Notice the shifts from specificity to generality (induction) or generality to specificity (deduction).
Six. Notice the transitions used to establish a number of reasons (additionally), contrast (however, on the other hand, to the contrary), and comparison (similarly).
Seven. Use annotations, writing key ideas in the margins and underlining key words and phrases. Annotating increases your memory and reading comprehension. Using a pen is better than a highlighter because you can write your own specific response to what you’re reading whereas a highlighter is too fat to make comments. Another advantage of using a pen is that you might come up with ideas for your essay response, even a thesis, and you don’t want to forget that material.
Eight. Look up unfamiliar words to build your vocabulary and increase your understanding of the piece.
Nine. Identify the writer’s style and tone (voice). The voice could be conversational, supercilious (arrogant), morally outraged, friendly, condescending, ironic, etc.
Ten. Notice if the writer is being implicit, using implication or suggestion, rather than being direct and explicit in the expression of the main idea.
Eleven. Ask if the writer considered opposing views fairly before coming to his or her conclusion.
Twelve. What political point of view, if any, informs the piece?
Thirteen. How strong is the evidence in the piece that is used to support the writer’s claim?
Fourteen. What is the intended readership? Educated adults? Experts? Children?
Find the main idea in this short piece about consumer shopping habits.
Essay 1: Back in the World by Tobias Wolff, 150 points
Option One
We read in Judith Shulvit's Slate book review of Our Story Begins the following:
To read a collection of Wolff's work that spans the years is to realize that he is obsessed with the act of lying. Asked in an interview why so many of his characters lie, Wolff replied, "The world is not enough, maybe? … To lie is to say the thing that is not, so there's obviously an unhappiness with what is, a discontent." A recent outbreak of faked memoirs has set off a storm of outraged pontification about why people pass off false histories as their own, so it's satisfying to read about liars who lie for interesting reasons rather than the usual despicable ones. Wolff is, in fact, a genius at locating the truths revealed by lies—the ancient and holy tongues, you might say, the otherwise inexpressible inner realities that lies give voice to.
In a 5-page paper, typed and double-spaced, develop a thesis that analyzes the characters' need to lie in Tobias Wolff's collection Back in the World. Address at least 4 stories in your essay. For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Option 2
In one of his darker moods, our instructor McMahon said this about the human race:
"We are a lost and sorry lot, hopelessly imprisoned by self-deception: false narratives we rely on to define our identities; tantalizing chimeras that assuage the boredom of our banal existence, and willed ignorance that prevents us from seeing the grotesqueries roiling just underneath the facade that we present to the world and to ourselves. As a result, we are crazed and deformed creatures forever lost in a world of solipsism."
In a 5-page essay, analyze McMahon's remarks in the context of no fewer than 4 stories from Tobias Wolff's collection Back in the World.
For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Option 3
One camp of readers argue that Wolff's fiction is redemptive in that its characters are delivered from their delusions through life-changing epiphanies that propel them back into the world of reality and personal accountability. Another camp of readers say the epiphanies come too little too late and only serve to speak to the characters' lives, which can be defined by endless cycles of futility and as such Wolff's stories are not redemptive but nihilistic.
What camp are you in? Develop an argumentative thesis that defends your position in a 5-page essay. For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
If you want to use another structure, that is fine. The above is merely a suggestion. For example, look at Choice B:
Back in the World, the title, refers to leaving our lies and delusions.
Define the "back in the world" experience to explain the book's title by comparing at least two stories in which characters awaken from their Jahiliyyah (prolonged period of ignorance and darkness) and go "back into the world."
In your first page, you might write a personal narrative of such a "back in the world" experience, followed by a transition to your thesis explaining what such an experience entails. The body paragraphs would compare two or more stories.
“The Missing Person” by Tobias Wolff
Part Two: Lexicon
1. Sloth posing as a Christian 19: a lot of lazy people claim an interest in religion when they've run out of options. This is their lie: They hunger for religion when in reality they want to take a hiatus (an absence) from life. They're escaping their own character flaws. This is a form of lying.
2. Jerry the mountebank, a professional hustler, a charlatan. It's ironic that Leo has to go through the act of being a charlatan in order to become more real than he was as someone "pursuing religion." A charlatan is a hustler and a liar.
3. Mendacity, the art of lying and BS.
4. Duplicity, the art of being two-faced, showing one face to hide the real one and one's real motives. One of the story's ironies is that the more Leo learns about duplicity the more he becomes his true self.
5. Obsequiousness, the art of butt-kissing, an essential component of the mountebank. It is a form of deception.
6. Sobriquet, nickname, “Slim” 31 A mask is a form of deception.
7. Jerry’s B.S. is intoxicating and contagious 32, 33 Of course B.S., which is differently than lying, is a form of deception.
8. Certain lies are indomitable juggernauts 35 and 49 (can’t put the genie back in the bottle): Once Leo becomes Slim, he cannot become his old self again.
9. Sagacity; Leo’s thoughts show wisdom on page 43. He becomes more self-aware, more street smart.
Why irony is an important part of going back into the world
Irony is a quality that requires maturity and wisdom and is so complicated it requires a guide. It's the ability to have insight and go past the common and superficial assumptions most people have when they respond to certain situations.
Irony is the ability to the see the complexity of an occurrence and thus not overreact to it as "good" or "bad."
A person who has a "sense of irony" has wisdom and tends to be more even keeled, avoiding emotional ups and downs. Additionally, a person with a sense of irony has a wry sense of humor, which is neither cynical or overly optimistic, but a strange mix of both.
Irony is, specifically, being able to see certain contradictions when others cannot see these contradictions.
There is no single definition of irony, but here is one that is applicable to Wolff's short story collection:
Irony is a reversal of expectations born from hidden contradictions in a person's character.
Leo goes on a journey in which the more he sees his life contradictions, the more he matures and emerges from his false self to his real self. The missing person is no more.
Part Three: Types of Irony
1. Plot Irony: A reversal that results in the opposite of our expectations like a car death after wearing seatbelt. This is one of the most common forms of irony.
A vegetarian becomes a world-famous butcher.
In all romantic comedies, the potential lovers hate each other at the beginning of the film.
In 10cc's famous song, "I'm Not in Love," the persona tries to convince himself, and the woman, that he is not in love but the more he says this mantra the more he reveals that he is helplessly in love.
A man hates academia and education and he becomes a professor.
A woman grows up hating dogs, then falls in love with them only to discover that she has developed a dog allergy.
2. Serendipitous Irony: The more we deviate from our original plan, the better the outcome. A botched play on the athletic field becomes a huge score.
3. Faustian Irony: The more we think we’re rising and succeeding in life, the more we are actually falling as we become crushed under the weight of our own vanity, which blinds us and leaves us vulnerable to failure.
4. Idle Irony: The better our life becomes the more we are compelled by boredom to sabotage our happiness. In other words people often cause problems that don’t really exist. And soon they create very real problems out of nothing.
5. Pathological Irony: Man shoots foot off to get rid of a wart.
6. Sarcastic Irony: Saying one thing and meaning an other.
7. Satanic Irony: A greedy man enjoys a long, healthy life while his innocent victims die cruel deaths and their lives are short. This type of irony refutes notions of justice.
8. Narcissistic Irony: searchers for the self lose their selves while people who don’t think about their selves find their selves. Someone goes into therapy and becomes even crazier. Or the example of Stalingrad in which the selfish die and the helpful live.
9. Jungian Irony: The more extreme we develop a facet of our personality the more extreme we develop its opposite. The macho man is also becoming more and more of a baby.
10. Materialistic Irony: You buy an expensive fur coat but the weather is forever hot so you can’t wear it like the old lady in Buenos Aires.
You fight tooth and claw to get rich, your business partner murders you, and your wife and children are left without the provider whose millions are hidden in bank accounts, which the wife cannot access.
11. Short-sighted irony: You workout to impress a girl but she’s turned off by big muscles. You were looking at what you want, not at what she wants. A woman overdressed and wears too much make-up and men are terrified of her.
12. Ironic Irony: You try to be ironic because you think it’s cool but you come across as a fake and as a poser.
13. Corruptive Irony: The more we get our hands dirty in the mess of life, the more pure we become; the more we stay away from the filth, the more contaminated we become by our lack of involvement, which is a form of narcissism. This is the major theme of the story “The Missing Person.” Leo finds love and redemption while working as a hustler in Las Vegas. “It’s all right. I’m here.” These are the final words and show that he’s not the missing person anymore.
14. Bureacratic Irony: A chef wears hair net but has long beard with dried filth in it. We pay attention to rules but forget common sense.
Irony in "The Missing Person"
Leo joins a religious order to find love and he finds scorn and hate.
Leo develops a reputation as a killer and earns the respect from the nuns who formerly hated him.
Leo goes to Vegas and finds love.
Leo joins a religious order, not to find God or his soul, but run away from responsibilities.
Leo joins a religious order to find an easy job and instead finds drudgery and disrespect.
Leo becomes corrupt and in doing so he finds purification and evolution.
Example of a Successful Introduction, Transition, and Thesis
Overflowing with a rare, unexpected sense of confidence, my armpits felt powder dry and my stomach calm as I sat in Olivetto's Italian restaurant and impressed Diana Mandalay with my little cocktail napkin doodles of goofy looking cavemen. Diana smiled at my crazed cartoon characters and laughed, almost to the point of her falling out of her chair. After she recovered herself, she gazed at me with a glowing face and desirous eyes, and it occurred to me that the date, now forty minutes without a glitch, was going along perfectly, and I regretted that I didn’t have a camera crew following my every step so that someday if I should ever become a grandfather I could show this perfect date to my grandchildren and give them a memento of their wizened patriarch’s dating insouciance.
Shortly after, our waitress arrived with our steamed mussels and started flirting with me. Right in front of Diana, the sultry waitress looked down at my cartoon drawing of a caveman and said she liked her men primitive. Then without trying to be discreet she wrote her phone number on her writing pad and handed me the slip of paper, all before Diana’s jealous gaze.
After the svelte waitress scurried off somewhere, I told Diana that while the waitress’ advances were flattering, they were, under the circumstances, inappropriate and affecting a prudish expression of admonishment at our waitress when she returned, I asked for our bill and announced that we would be leaving immediately.
The date was not over, not by a long shot. Berkeley's Ashby Avenue and College Boulevard afford a richness of shopping and gave me the opportunity to show off my cosmopolitan tastes. I purchased fine men’s apparel made only of the highest quality silks, cotton blends, and cashmere. I bought exotic, hard-to-find spices for my pantry. I purchased attractive ceramic bakeware for my savory, homemade breads, muffins and biscuits. I presented myself as a man of formidable domestic and culinary talents, not to be found in most male troglodytes.
You should have seen the self-assured smile I enjoyed as we walked back to Olivetto’s where Diana’s Audi was parked on the street. I was resolved already to not kiss her. Don’t be needy, I thought, by presuming a first-date kiss. Instead, make her hungry for the kiss later, at a time not yet announced. I was going to play it cool after all. And knowing that I would not kiss her, I had no pressure on me. I felt light, strong and free.
But Diana, you see, had other plans. Standing ten feet from her car, she embraced me, told me she had a good time, and planted a firm kiss on my lips. She then reared her head back a few inches and studied my face, perhaps to gauge the impression her kiss had left on me.
It was at this stage that my perfect date came to an end, for without warning, to either me or Diana, I did something that was so asinine and so insane that no mortal could have anticipated it. With my face just inches from hers and while still feeling the tingle of her passionate kiss, I let out a huge caveman scream. The scream was unmistakably visceral and seemed to roar from some primitive part of my soul with a pitch and volume of such unmistakable power that I could easily imagine the scream shattering the glass of nearby car and merchant windows. I could tell from Diana’s shocked expression that she did not at first register what I had done. But I could see in the periphery of my vision that onlookers had heard me and they were rushing away from the scene, one woman comforting a baby crying in its carriage, before I unleashed another caveman-like paroxysm. Only after what felt like several minutes did Diana seem to comprehend that I had just screamed in her face and very slowly she inched backward toward her Audi, got inside and, nodding sheepishly at me, drove off.
It should be noted here that that would be the last time I would ever see Diana, for apparently so disturbing was my caveman scream that it was reported to me later from reliable sources that she moved to another country where she changed her name and disguised herself with oversized sunglasses and head-covering scarves.
What a "back in the world" moment it was to realize I can't be too cool because whenever I get cool there is this taunter inside me who shoots me down. And there's the irony: On a date in which I was Mr. Cool, my romantic objectives were undermined by my Inner Caveman, which seemed to derive nourishment from the very coolness that was supposed to impress Diana.
Indeed, we see these same contradictory dynamics of irony in Tobias Wolff's Back in the World in which characters tumble to the wrestling mat engaged in a vicious struggle with their opposite selves evidenced by _____________, _____________, ________________, and _____________.
MLA Format
Basic MLA Format
Why You Should Write Your Introduction Last
Outline Structure for Literary Essay
McMahon Grammar Exercise: Identifying Phrases, Independent Clauses, and Dependent Clauses
Identify the group of words in bold type as phrase, independent clause, or dependent clause.
One. Toward the monster’s palace, we see a white marble fountain jettisoning chocolate fudge all over the other giants.
Two. Before going to school, Gerard likes to make sure he’s packed his chocolate chip cookies and bagels.
Three. Because Jack’s love of eating pizza every night cannot be stopped, he finds his cardio workouts to be rather worthless.
Four. Maria finds the Lexus preferable to the BMW because of the Lexus’ lower repair costs.
Five. Greg does not drive at night because he suffers from poor nocturnal eyesight.
Six. Whenever Greg drives past HomeTown Buffet, he is overcome with depression and nausea.
Seven. People who eat at Cinnabon, according to Louis C.K., always look miserable over their poor life decisions.
Eight. After eating at Cinnabon and HomeTown Buffet, Gary has to eat a bottle of antacids.
Nine. Towards the end of the date, Gary decided to ask Maria if she’d care for another visit to HomeTown Buffet.
Ten. Whenever Maria is in the presence of a gluttonous gentleman, she withdraws into her shell.
Eleven. Greg watched Maria recoil into her shell while biting her nails.
Twelve. Greg watched Maria recoil into her private universe while she bit her nails.
Thirteen. Eating at all-you-can-eat buffets will expand the circumference of your waistline.
Fourteen. Larding your essay with grammatical errors will result in a low grade.
Fifteen. My favorite pastime is larding my essay with grammatical errors.
Sixteen. Larding my body with chocolate chunk peanut butter cookies followed by several gallons of milk, I wondered if I should skip dinner that evening.
Seventeen. After contemplating the benefits of going on a variation of the Paleo diet, I decided I was at peace being a fat man with a strong resemblance to the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Eighteen. In the 1970s few people would consider eating bugs as their main source of protein although today world-wide food shortages have compelled a far greater percentage of the human race to entertain this unpleasant possibility.
Nineteen. Because of increased shortages in worldwide animal protein, more and more people are looking to crickets, grasshoppers, and grubs as possible complete protein amino acid alternatives.
Twenty. The percentage of people getting married in recent years has significantly declined as an economic malaise has deflated confidence in the viability of sustaining a long-term marriage.
Twenty-one. Before you decide to marry someone, consider two things: your temperament and your economic prospects.
Twenty-two. To understand the pitfalls of getting married prematurely is to embark on the road to greater wisdom.
Twenty-three. To know me is to love me.
Twenty-four. To languish in the malignant juices of self-pity after breaking up with your girlfriend is to fall down the rabbit hole of moral dissolution and narcissism.
Twenty-five. Having considered the inevitable disappointment of being rich, I decided not to rob a bank.
Twenty-six. Watching TV on a sticky vinyl sofa all day, I noticed I was developing bedsores.
Twenty-seven. While I watched TV for twenty consecutive hours, I began to wonder if life was passing me by.
Twenty-eight. Under the bridge where a swarm of mosquitos gathered, the giant belched.
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Research Links for "Say Yes"
Racism Or One Night in Marriage
Lying Down the Psychological Groundwork for Back in the World by Tobias Wolff
Part I Review of the different types of irony as they are evidenced in the stories
1. Naïveté or innocence like the wife in “Say Yes” or Krystal in “Desert Breakdown." Innocence is lost when the wives gain their Third Eye and realize they are better off alone, free from the symbiotic unhealthy dependence they have on their husbands.
The irony is that the weak role played by the woman hides the fact that the women are far stronger than the men.
In marriage, there is often a power struggle over the following:
spending money
spending time
deciding on relationships, family, friends
thinking about issues (who's right?)
assigning responsibilities
asserting control (don't do stuff behind my back)
What I've found is that over the years women have evolved to cater a man's ego while allowing the man to THINK he's in control when actually the woman is in control.
I remember a married woman told me how she gets her husband to take her out to dinner.
Another irony is that men are often full of bluster, a condition that hides their intractable Inner Baby.
Another irony in both stories is that the "weaker" wife is actually more sane than the husband and less dependent on him than he is on her even though he thinks she needs him. Men are expert at inverting reality. What's up is down and what's down is up.
2. Egotistical blindness that results in a refusal of accountability, self-introspection and creates an inflamed sense of entitlement in Mark like Peter and Donald in “The Rich Brother.”
The irony is that both Mark, Donald and Peter's sense of entitlement leaves them morally bankrupt and deprived of the power to change.
3. Narcissism, which results in delusions of grandeur like Mark in “Desert Breakdown.” This sense of grandeur is a facade feebly hiding that Mark's parents who "gave him everything" didn't give him what he really needed: guidance, structure, and discipline. Lacking those essential qualities, he is helpless, a cripple and deep down he resents his parents for not giving him what he really needed.
And this points to another irony: Mark's parents festooned him with gifts and bailed him out over and over, giving their son everything he wanted, but they didn't give their son WHAT HE NEEDED.
The irony is that the greater Mark's grandeur, the more he is accelerating toward his destruction.
4. Misguided good intentions—perhaps the wife in “Say Yes” thought she could “reform” her husband. But really she spoiled him and babied him (and seems to do so in a semi-comatose autopilot) like Mark's parents spoiled him.
In fact, the wife has been spoiling and enabling her husband, but his racist comments opened a window to his soul from which it appears she is forever repelled. This makes sense because a person cannot comptartmentalize or isolate his racism from other facets of his personality. The racism, which is part of his bull-headed ignorant, stubborn attitude, bleeds through everything he does.
5. Misguided ambition—Leo in the “Missing Person” aspires to a “spiritual life” for which he has no aptitude. The more he tries to be spiritual, the more he finds he is a man of the material world and there lies the irony.
Another irony: Leo is more real when he is his created persona Slim.
6. Unconscious fear—Leo withdrawals into the church because of his fear of women, heartbreak, intimacy and in a general sense a fear of the world. In many ways the story “The Missing Person” is about the power of corruption for transforming our lives for the better—if we react to corruption in a way that makes us stronger, not weaker. To borrow a clichéd quote from Nietzsche, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
7. Wishful thinking—it’s human nature to want to believe that things aren’t as bad as we suspect they are. Perhaps this is the case of the wife in “Say Yes” and Krystal in “Desert Breakdown.”
8. Oversimplistic view of the world that causes us to look at the surface without peeling the outer layer and seeing the complexities, contradictions, paradoxes, and enigmas that lie underneath. Peter is guilty of not seeing his own contradictions that make him addicted to playing the Mother role to his brother.
9. Having parents, a spouse, a boyfriend, a girlfriend or other enablers who bail us out every time we sink so that we develop a false sense of security and feel free to pursue our delusions with impunity like Mark in “Desert Breakdown.”
10. Money can give us a false sense of security and invincibility so that we can assert our most destructive, grotesque aspects of our personality and think we can get away with it—like Peter in “The Rich Brother.”
Part II: “Back in the World” Moments in which you're ability to see the irony of your situation becomes your Third Eye:
Hopefully, all of us will have a “back in the world” moment, that defining instance in which we take our heads out of our proverbial butts and see reality for what it really is:
1. You wake up one morning and realize your boyfriend or girlfriend is the devil and you can’t believe you spent all these months, maybe even years, jumping through hoops to stay in the relationship.
2. You wake up one morning and realize you need to move out of your parents’ house. They provide love, security, and support, but you're dying.
3. A fat guy got the lap band procedure, got skinny but he has acid reflux and bad breath.
4. A woman planned her divorce before she got married.
5. A personal trainer makes a good living charging clients who never build the motivation to exercise and eat a healthy diet.
The Back in the World Moment in "Say Yes"
The husband's refusal to say yes in regards to marrying his wife if she were black makes the wife go back into the world in several ways.
One. The husband's reliance and dependence on cultural bias as a way of belonging to his tribe remains unquestioned and reveals him as an emotional child who lacks the independence of mind and courage to question why he thinks the way he does. In other words, he behaves blindly and stubbornly in all things and this puts a larger question at work for the wife: What is the meaning of my marriage?
Two. The wife suddenly needs to know: Are me and my husband playing empty roles? Are we playing house? Is our life merely a facade?
Three. The wife suddenly sees something hideous about her marriage: Oh my God. We live as a couple but it's all fake. We don't really know one another. We've been sleepwalking through life, going through the motions with our heads up our butts. I'm simply his "white" wife, an illusion.
Four. This marriage has no real intimacy or understanding. It's simply a domestic hell and I've acclimated to it successfully until now because I've been blind to its real status and substance.
Five. If my husband can't see me as a person and not a "white wife," then he doesn't love me for the real me but loves me as a superficial add-on, a trophy, a prop for his ideal image. How do I face him when I see my marriage for the farce that it is?
Five. The veil of my phony marriage has been lifted. The toothpaste is out of the tube and I can't put it back. What do I do now? I may be capable of change, but is my husband?
Six. The wife is revolted or disgusted by her husband. There's no going back. The marriage is over. We all have a Disgusting Experience that cuts off a relationship. I had one that I'll call the Snuggles Incident.
Seven. When it comes to race, thinking people realize that race is not a biological fact. Rather, race is 3 things:
1. It's a social construction.
2. It's random.
3. It's based on perception, not reality.
If the husband in the story received a letter telling him his wife has 10% African blood, what would he do? What if the letter stated she had 5%? What's his "cut-off" line? There isn't one. It's arbitrary.
The Need for Parallel Structure in Your Thesis and All Your Writing
Examples of Faulty Sentence Structure
The wife's back in the world moment consists of seeing her husband's racism, identifying his ignorance of who she really is, and to see his stubborn refusal to change.
"to see" should be replaced with "seeing"
To repair her marriage, the couple would be well advised to confront their sleepwalking existence, to acknowledge that they have been living not as one but as strangers in the same house, admitting they have not been listening enough to one another.
Replace "admitting" with "to admit"
Posted at 05:58 AM in Back in the World Lessons | Permalink | Comments (0)
Strategies for Writing Your Essay (adapted from The Arlington Reader, Fourth Edition)
One. Know what type of writing your doing:
The takeaway from the above is that you should always know what type of essay is generated from the assignment options the professor gives you.
The wrong approach to an essay assignment:
Students were supposed to be content analysis of Tobias Wolff stories and what I got was ten percent analysis of Wolff’s stories and ninety percent of the student’s personal narrative.
Students were supposed to write an argumentative essay in which they either supported or refuted a book that argues we’re imprisoning too many Americans and rather than support or refute the author’s contention, these students merely summarized the book and included summaries of book reviews for their “argumentative paper,” which contained nothing of their own opinion.
Brainstorm of list of topics and thesis statements that are relevant to the essay.
Most writers need to get the bad stuff out of the way, so there’s no shame in coming up with five bad thesis statements before getting to a good one. That’s a natural course of events.
Always make sure your thesis addresses the essay prompt.
Your thesis is a single sentence that drives your whole essay. The thesis in argumentation is often called your claim.
Generally speaking, a thesis is the main argument or controlling idea of your essay. It makes a claim that intellectually sophisticated, challenging to common assumptions, compelling, and can is supportable with evidence.
The more obvious a thesis, the less compelling it is to write. The more a thesis reaches for insight or challenges common assumptions, the more compelling and sophisticated it is.
Bad thesis:
Smartphones are a nuisance in the class.
Better thesis
Rather than ban students from using their smartphones in the class, college instructors should integrate these and other personal technological devices into their classroom teaching.
Writing an introduction to your essay
Before transitioning from your introduction to your thesis, you should look at some effective introduction strategies:
Briefly narrate a compelling anecdote that captures your readers’ attention.
State a common false argument or false perception that your essay will refute.
Offer a curious paradox to pique your readers’ interest.
Ask a question that your essay will try to answer.
Use a fresh (not overused) quotation or parable to stir your readers’ interest.
Essay 1: Back in the World by Tobias Wolff, 150 points
Option One
We read in Judith Shulvit's Slate book review of Our Story Begins the following:
To read a collection of Wolff's work that spans the years is to realize that he is obsessed with the act of lying. Asked in an interview why so many of his characters lie, Wolff replied, "The world is not enough, maybe? … To lie is to say the thing that is not, so there's obviously an unhappiness with what is, a discontent." A recent outbreak of faked memoirs has set off a storm of outraged pontification about why people pass off false histories as their own, so it's satisfying to read about liars who lie for interesting reasons rather than the usual despicable ones. Wolff is, in fact, a genius at locating the truths revealed by lies—the ancient and holy tongues, you might say, the otherwise inexpressible inner realities that lies give voice to.
In a 5-page paper, typed and double-spaced, develop a thesis that analyzes the characters' need to lie in Tobias Wolff's collection Back in the World. Address at least 4 stories in your essay. For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Option 2
In one of his darker moods, our instructor McMahon said this about the human race:
"We are a lost and sorry lot, hopelessly imprisoned by self-deception: false narratives we rely on to define our identities; tantalizing chimeras that assuage the boredom of our banal existence, and willed ignorance that prevents us from seeing the grotesqueries roiling just underneath the facade that we present to the world and to ourselves. As a result, we are crazed and deformed creatures forever lost in a world of solipsism."
In a 5-page essay, analyze McMahon's remarks in the context of no fewer than 4 stories from Tobias Wolff's collection Back in the World.
For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Option 3
One camp of readers argue that Wolff's fiction is redemptive in that its characters are delivered from their delusions through life-changing epiphanies that propel them back into the world of reality and personal accountability. Another camp of readers say the epiphanies come too little too late and only serve to speak to the characters' lives, which can be defined by endless cycles of futility and as such Wolff's stories are not redemptive but nihilistic.
What camp are you in? Develop an argumentative thesis that defends your position in a 5-page essay. For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Part One. Lexicon of Fake and Real Self-Esteem:
1. cipher, a nonentity, a nobody; a cipher like Mark is a narcissist whose self-esteem is GREATER than who he really is.
According to David Brooks' The Social Animal, most people suffer a disparity between their inflated self-esteem and their low competence and talent.
Irony: People with low self-esteem often are more competent and conscientious. This is probably because the term "low self-esteem" really means something else entirely: conscientious, having a moral conscience.
Another irony: A society like America that is obsessed with high self-esteem discourages the development of morality. In other words, America is a narcissistic culture hiding behind the robes of "self-esteem."
2. entitlement: I deserve good things in life without having to struggle to become worthy of those good things. Why should I have to work my butt off to get good crap? People should just love me for who I am. And this "love" should translate into me getting the stuff I want when I want it, which is now.
Entitlement is a form of self-crippling because you need character, toughness, discipline, and structured routine to achieve greatness.
In contrast, Mark is dependent on being bailed out by his parents to the point of being an entitled cripple. Thus we can conclude that parents who spoil their children cripple them and that the children unconsciously know this and resent their parents. Indeed, then, people do resent the hands that feed them.
Another irony: Unconditional generosity results in resentment from the benefactor of the generosity. Mark has no boundaries, no accountability, the adolescent dream of freedom, yet he is a slave to his immaturity, selfishness, spite, and rancor.
3. Audacity: stupid or inappropriate bold action; shameless boldness
4. Audacious, the adjective form of the noun audacity.
5. Thanatos, choosing death over life 137; perhaps Mark wants to die to spite his parents and to escape the unbearable truth that he has no talent and is doomed to failure.
6. Asinine, foolish 143
7. Hedonism; defining the ultimate form of happiness as the pleasure principle, a sort of religion whereby bodily pleasures are the supreme experience. At the root of hedonism is the desire to escape the self by losing oneself through self-abandonment. Often this self-abandonment is reckless and self-destructive. The bad boy rocker can pull off a binge of self-abandonment but not the anal accountant.
8. Acedia, depression from having no focus in life; your energy is sapped from you in the absence of a life purpose; I see a lot of acedia with potheads and alcoholics.
9. Nihilism, a sense that nothing matters for you or anything in this world; you’re beyond caring; a nihilist says, “I don’t give a damn about anything.” Or “It’s all B.S.”
10. Pushing the envelope (both husbands from "Say Yes" and "Desert Breakdown, 1968," push their wives to extremes until the wives have a "back in the world" moment) The irony is that people stay in their private hell because it's not hellish enough. Hell has to get really bad before we want to make our escape. In the absence of a hellish relationship, many people resign themselves to a slow, agonizing, low-simmering death.
Part Two. Mark’s Misguided Definition of Freedom Leads to Moral Dissolution
1. No boundaries, anything goes.
2. Self-indulgence; the self-indulgent man isn’t happy
3. Loyalty only to selfish whims, no accountability to anyone else, including one’s family
4. Make up reality as you go along to suit your needs and to justify your heinous actions
5. No accountability to anyone so that you’re free to piss away your life on nonsense.
6. To pursue one’s hedonistic vision of happiness.
7. The myth of Hakuna Matata
8. Use your money to get away with your most base impulses. Think of Arnold S and Maria Shriver. Arnold used big money to pay-off mistresses to keep silent but a love child for ten years finally emerged. Money can only keep secrets for so long.
Part Three. The Results of Misguided Freedom
1. immaturity
2. loneliness, lack of connection
3. a lack of focus, a wayward soul
4. moral dissolution, nihilism, despair, a lack of meaning, nothing matters anymore.
5. Your life will vacillate between self-pitying despair and bombastic grandeur. Think of Mark's Apex Fantasy: Being famous and humiliating his parents. His hatred of his parents parallels Donald's hatred of Peter.
Part Four. A More Accurate, Healthy Definition of Freedom
1. The discipline to do what it’s in your best interests.
2. Structured time that gives you increased responsibilities. The result is greater and greater maturity and fortitude.
3. Accountability to others, which strengthens your connections to others. Happiness is how connected we are to others.
Part Five. The Results of Real Freedom
1. Productivity
2. Maturity
3. High esteem in community
4. Connection to others
Wives and Husband in Wolff's Short Story Collection: What women discover or how they "go back into the world"
1. Crazy is the new normal
2. Auto pilot and passive acceptance
3. Husband pushes the envelope and shatters auto pilot
4. Wives resolved to self-sufficiency and control of their own destiny
Mark has no back in the world experience.
Krystal however does. What is it?
Oh my God. All of Mark's talk about being a singer, an entertainer, etc., is complete B.S. In fact, I am married to a louse, a cipher, a hideous, emotionally-arrested pig-man whom I must escape to improve the chances of a better life for my baby and me.
Back in the World Moment in "Say Yes": The wife sees her life as a lie and sees that her husband's life is a lie and always will be.
The Back in the World Moment in "Say Yes"
The husband's refusal to say yes in regards to marrying his wife if she were black makes the wife go back into the world in several ways.
One. The husband's reliance and dependence on cultural bias as a way of belonging to his tribe remains unquestioned and reveals him as an emotional child who lacks the independence of mind and courage to question why he thinks the way he does. In other words, he behaves blindly and stubbornly in all things and this puts a larger question at work for the wife: What is the meaning of my marriage?
Two. The wife suddenly needs to know: Are me and my husband playing empty roles? Are we playing house? Is our life merely a facade?
Three. The wife suddenly sees something hideous about her marriage: Oh my God. We live as a couple but it's all fake. We don't really know one another. We've been sleepwalking through life, going through the motions with our heads up our butts. I'm simply his "white" wife, an illusion.
Four. This marriage has no real intimacy or understanding. It's simply a domestic hell and I've acclimated to it successfully until now because I've been blind to its real status and substance.
Five. If my husband can't see me as a person and not a "white wife," then he doesn't love me for the real me but loves me as a superficial add-on, a trophy, a prop for his ideal image. How do I face him when I see my marriage for the farce that it is?
Five. The veil of my phony marriage has been lifted. The toothpaste is out of the tube and I can't put it back. What do I do now? I may be capable of change, but is my husband?
Six. The wife is revolted or disgusted by her husband. There's no going back. The marriage is over. We all have a Disgusting Experience that cuts off a relationship. I had one that I'll call the Snuggles Incident.
Seven. When it comes to race, thinking people realize that race is not a biological fact. Rather, race is 3 things:
1. It's a social construction.
2. It's random.
3. It's based on perception, not reality.
If the husband in the story received a letter telling him his wife has 10% African blood, what would he do? What if the letter stated she had 5%? What's his "cut-off" line? There isn't one. It's arbitrary.
The Need for Parallel Structure in Your Thesis and All Your Writing
Examples of Faulty Sentence Structure
The wife's back in the world moment consists of seeing her husband's racism, identifying his ignorance of who she really is, and to see his stubborn refusal to change.
"to see" should be replaced with "seeing"
To repair her marriage, the couple would be well advised to confront their sleepwalking existence, to acknowledge that they have been living not as one but as strangers in the same house, admitting they have not been listening enough to one another.
Replace "admitting" with "to admit"
Web Format
Consider these components that conceal, or reveal, the characters' true selves:
One. Jungian Psychology, the Shadow, or the Anti-Self, a reaction to our facade. Pete's facade of an assured rich man is shattered by his Shadow, an emotional cripple addicted to playing the role of Donald's mother.
Or look at Leo's Shadow, a reaction to his facade as the isolated pious religious man. His Shadow creates Slim, a worldly hustler.
Two. The Inverted Hakuna Matata (life with no worries). The more Pete and Mark pursue the Hakuna Matata, the more they suffer moral and spiritual dissolution or breakdown (hence the story's title "Desert Breakdown").
Three. The Extremes of Hell Produce Hope: In "Desert Breakdown" and "Say Yes" the doormat wives find hope and the courage to change, leaving their husbands, when their husbands' morally obnoxious behavior becomes extreme enough so that the wives can no longer see their marriage as "normal."
Approach for Writing About the Connection Between Symbiosis and Dishonesty: A symbiotic relationship defines a delusional and dishonest life.
Symbiosis, the unhealthy dependence between an individual and others, creates several ironies in the stories, "The Rich Brother, Desert Breakdown, and "Say Yes," not the least of which include the spoil-resentment effect; the enable-cripple effect; the submissive-power effect; and the escape-cling effect.
The spoil-resentment effect: spoiling results in crippling, moral dissolution, worthlessness, power envy. The enabler has assisted in the person's moral dissolution, learned helplessness, worthlessness.
McMahon's Approach to Writing a Thesis About Irony
Tobias Wolff's stories illuminate irony in many compelling, profound ways. Some include the irony of false wealth in "The Rich Brother"; the irony of self-knowledge in "The Missing Person"; the irony of marital power in "Desert Breakdown, 1968" and "Say Yes," and the irony of pride and blindness in "Our Story Begins."
Links for Parallelism
Part One: 3 Traps of Life As They Are Embodied in the Story's Characters
Trap One: Hopeless Despair: The doctor who wouldn't let go of his divorce pain and walked around an empty house.
In a similar trap, Charlie feels like a nonentity, a cipher, a nobody. He is looking for a sense of place, purpose, distinction, and belonging. He is looking for hope yet he feels like an outsider, a young man whose writing aspirations evidence a life of futility and vanity. As a result, he is overcome by the paralysis of self-pity. His hope lies in his passion and hunger for literature and writing in general. By the story's end, he identifies with the ship moving through the fog, an act of faith and desire kept alive.
Trap Two: Vainglorious Pride: A woman died because she wouldn't take off her body-length mink coat in Buenos Aries, an an outdoor bazaar.
Hipsters say "we're educated, hip, cosmopolitans, not like those close-minded provencial tribalists," and in doing so these hipsters become the very tribalists they claim to despise.
Pride always results in blindness.
Audrey and George, the two illicit lovers embody pride and vanity. They feel morally and spiritually superior to the man they’ve betrayed, Truman. They are in fact blinded by their vanity, which is ironic in the context of Miguel whose passions make him blind.
Audrey and George think they're better educated than most; they think they're special; as a result, they are blind to their vanity.
Trap Three: Self-Satisfied Mediocrity and Complacency: The couple in Torrance who have separate TVs and pills and fast-food refuse on their porch.
Truman is a man who evidences a lack of curiosity regarding anything beyond his small circle of interest; he shows a certain philistinism (disdain for arts) and is so lax and self-satisfied with his current station in life that he is blind to the fact that his wife Audrey his having an affair with his “friend” George.
Part Two. Thematic Elements
Fog is pervasive in the story. Fog appears to represent blindness, a struggle to see.
All the characters are blind in some fashion or other and this blindess brings them to one of Life's 3 Traps. Like a typical college student, Charlie is blind to his identity, his niche, his sense of belonging; Audrey and George are blind to their vanity that makes them repulsive and obnoxious; Truman is blind to his complacency that stagnates him and makes him fail to see his wife is venturing into adulterous waters; Miguel is blinded by fanatical love.
Irony
Story’s irony is that in the midst of all this blindness and fog there is hope: All the characters are starting their lives over. A new start suggests rebirth and the possibility of seeing things again.
Jahiliyya, this is the Arabic term for a long, protracted period of ignorance, the dark ages, if you will. Every character is stuck in the Jahiliyya, as we all are at one period in our lives.
Charlie is blind to his own life but he becomes the Third Eye of the love triangle, witnessing in an almost voyeuristic fashion the sad truth that Truman is about to confront.
Final paragraph shows a lobster flailing its pincers, perhaps a sign of desire. Perhaps our “salvation” is staying hungry, keeping our passion, as a sort of antidote from complacency and vanity and despair.
Part Three. Class Activity for Reviewing Irony in the Stories and Developing Your Thesis
Explain specific, distinguishing characteristics for irony for the following stories and then develop a thesis that allows you to put ALL the distinguishing characteristics for your research paper:
"Rich Brother" (example: The more assured Pete is in his identity as the "rich brother" the more he remains blind to his essential weakness: He is an emotional cripple, incapable of change, incapable of maturity and humility, and incapable of freeing himself from his sick addiction to playing the role of Mother to his brother Donald.)
"The Missing Person"
"Say Yes"
"Desert Breakdown, 1968"
"Our Story Begins"
Review of Essay Assignment
In a 6-page research paper, use no fewer than 3 stories from the book to write an extended definition of the word irony. You must chronicle an ironic experience you had in a personal narrative for the first 2 pages.
Some thesis statements to avoid:
Wolff's stories are rich in irony.
Irony really hits the characters with a wallop.
I really like all the irony in Wolff's stories.
We learned that irony is part of seeing the world in a new way and that once you see irony, really see it, you can't go back to your pre-ironic existence.
I feel better about myself now that I learned the definition of irony and have decided to change my major.
Understanding irony in Wolff's stories really opens your eyes to life's deeper truths and now that I've read this book I'm a better person. Thank you, McMahon.
Understanding irony makes me feel special, like I'm a member of an elite club, but the downside is now I feel lonely because so few people understand life the way I do. McMahon, you ruined my life.
I've studied irony in McMahon's class and read all the stories but now I'm more confused about irony more than ever and will probably drop McMahon's class and take 1A from another instructor.
Irony is not really that big of a deal. I see it everywhere. I don't see why McMahon has to make a big production of it. Frankly, I'm bored with the subject of irony and am ready to give up on McMahon.
Studying irony makes you a better person so spend a lot of time studying it and you'll see how much better your life is.
I don't believe in irony. It doesn't exist. It's just a cynical attitude McMahon has about life and he's trying to infect us with his cynical attitude. I resent him and I resent the class. At the end of the semester I'm filing a complaint.
You can't separate two sentences with a conjunctive adverb and a comma, so you better know the list of these adverbs. However, you can use a comma followed by FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so).
I'm sweating in the sun; however, I must wait out here for my girlfriend.
I'm sweating in the sun, but I must wait out here for my girlfriend.
McMahon Grammar Exercises: Comma Splices and Run-Ons
After each sentence, put a “C” for Correct or a “CS” for Comma Splice. If the sentence is a comma splice, rewrite it so that it is correct.
One. Bailey used to eat ten pizzas a day, now he eats a spinach salad for lunch and dinner.
Two. Marco no longer runs on the treadmill, instead he opts for the less injury-causing elliptical trainer.
Three. Running can cause shin splints, which can cause excruciating pain.
Four. Running in the incorrect form can wreak havoc on the knees, slowing down can often correct the problem.
Five. While we live in a society where 1,500-calorie cheeseburgers are on the rise, the reading of books, sad to say, is on the decline.
Six. Facebook is a haven for narcissists, it encourages showing off with selfies and other mundane activities that are ways of showing how great and amazing our lives our, what a sham.
Seven. We live in a society where more and more Americans are consuming 1,500-calorie cheeseburgers, however, those same Americans are reading less and less books.
Eight. Love is a virus from outer space, it tends to become most contagious during April and May.
Nine. The tarantula causes horror in many people, moreover there is a species of tarantula in Brazil, the wandering banana spider, that is the most venomous spider in the world.
Ten. Even though spiders cause many people to recoil with horror, most species are harmless.
Eleven. The high repair costs of European luxury vehicles repelled Amanda from buying such a car, instead she opted for a Japanese-made Lexus.
Twelve. Amanda got a job at the Lexus dealership, now she’s trying to get me a job in the same office.
Thirteen. While consuming several cinnamon buns, a twelve-egg cheese omelet, ten slices of French toast slathered in maple syrup, and a tray of Swedish loganberry crepes topped with a dollop of blueberry jam, I contemplated the very grave possibility that I might be eating my way to a heart attack.
Fourteen. Even though I rank marijuana far less dangerous than most pharmaceutical drugs, alcohol, and other commonly used intoxicants, I find marijuana unappealing for a host of reasons, not the least of which is its potential for radically degrading brain cells, its enormous effect on stimulating the appetite, resulting in obesity, and its capacity for over-relaxing many people so that they lose significant motivation to achieve their primary goals, opting instead for a life of sloth and intractable indolence.
Posted at 01:35 PM in Back in the World Lessons | Permalink | Comments (0)
Lesson on Using Sources (adapted from The Arlington Reader, fourth edition)
We use sources to establish credibility and to provide evidence for our claim. Because we want to establish credibility, the sources have to be credible as well.
To be credible, the sources must be
Current or up to date: to verify that the material is still relevant and has all the latest and possibly revised research and statistical data.
Authoritative: to insure that your sources represent experts in the field of study. Their studies are peer-reviewed and represent the gold standard, meaning they are the sources of record that will be referred to in academic debate and conversation.
Depth: The source should be detailed to give a comprehensive grasp of the subject.
Objectivity: The study is relatively free of agenda and bias or the writer is upfront about his or her agenda so that there are no hidden objectives. If you’re consulting a Web site that is larded with ads or a sponsor, then there may be commercial interests that compromise the objectivity.
Integrating Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism
Summarizing Sources
“A summary restates the main idea of a passage in concise terms” (314).
A typical summary is one or two sentences.
A summary does not contain your opinions or analysis.
Paraphrasing Sources
A paraphrase, which is longer than a summary, contains more details and examples. Sometimes you need to be more specific than a summary to make sure your reader understands you.
A paraphrase does not include your opinions or analysis.
Quoting Sources
Quoting sources means you are quoting exactly what you are referring to in the text with no modifications, which might twist the author’s meaning.
You should avoid long quotations as much as possible.
Quote only when necessary. Rely on summary and paraphrase before resorting to direct quotes.
A good time to use a specific quote is when it’s an opposing point that you want to refute.
Using Signal Phrases or Identifying Tag to Introduce Summary, Paraphrase, and Quoted Material
According to Jeff McMahon, the grading rubric in English classes is used in such a way by instructors that soon there will be no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” professor. They’ll all be the same.
Jeff McMahon notes that the grading rubric in English classes is used in such a way by instructors that soon there will be no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” professor. They’ll all be the same.
The grading rubric in English classes is used in such a way by instructors, Jeff McMahon observes, that soon there will be no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” professor.
The grading rubric in English classes is used in such a way by instructors that soon there will be no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” professor, Jeff McMahon points out.
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Explain the title “Back in the World”
To go "back in the world" means to leave one's delusions and re-connect with reality, often a shocking experience.
Often a crisis makes us go back in the world. Sometimes the back in the world is sudden like an epiphany or a brilliant vision. Other times, it is gradual.
We see a photo of ourselves and realize we've gained weight.
Our wife tape-records our sleeping and we realize we have a lethal case of snoring.
Our credit card is taken from a merchant and we realize we have self-destructive spending habits.
Large men with scary dogs show up at our house demanding money and we realize we have a gambling problem.
You see a video of a news report of you,a skeletal girl, being taken on a stretcher to a hospital and you realize you have an eating disorder.
Women no longer return your calls and you realize your life as a Pompous Ass Playboy have caught up with you.
You see your wife having animated and engaging conversation with other people, both men and women, and this conversation has far more depth and energy than exists when you talk to her and you realize you need to get stop watching ESPN and start paying attention to your wife.
You make a hyped-up production about leaving Cleveland to play basketball for the Miami Heat and now most everyone in the world wants to see you fail. You overplayed your popularity card and it backfired.
Out of sibling rivalry and jealousy, you tried to kill your brother when he was little and even though your whole life is committed to hiding your guilt and sense of failure by being filthy rich, you realize your are forever responsible for the damage you've done to him and you must forever share his burdens.
Part Two. Lexicon
1. Decrepitude (weakened, broken down, the condition of both brothers)
2. hubris
3. braggadocio
4. culpability
5. symbiosis
6. passive-aggressive
7. scapegoat
8. sibling rivalry
9. stagnation
10. status quo
11. spite—an impulse for revenge that hurts you more than the person you hate.
12. Insanity— doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (Albert Einstein)
13. centrifugal
14. centripetal
Part Three. Pete’s 6 Moral Flaws
1. He worships money, seeing it as a solution for everything.
2. He suffers from a brand of obnoxious smug pride rooted in his wealth. (“Grow up and get a Mercedes.”) In fact, Pete is not rich at all as evidenced by the story’s ironic title “The Rich Brother.” Pete in fact is anything but “rich.” He is impoverished by his condition of helplessness and moral decrepitude. Pete covers his flaws with a pose of hubris and braggadocio.
3. He sees things only at face value without digging deeper because he is afraid of what he will find.
4. He is afraid to confront his culpability for the past, namely, his role in hating on his brother Donald through his rivalry and blind ambition.
5. Pete is a liar to his brother and to himself. For example on page 197 he lies about his dreams, claiming he only dreams about sex and money when in fact he is haunted by guilt for the sins he once committed against Donald. On 199 and 200 we find that Pete tried to kill his brother after an operation because he was jealous of the way his mother doted on Donald. Ironically, now it’s Pete who dotes on Donald and in doing so he assures that he keeps Donald crippled, which is to his advantage, or so he seeks.
6. He is afraid to confront his current role as Donald’s “mother,” which is ironic since he in a way attempted to steal Donald’s mother from him. In other words, Pete is dependent on Donald being dependent on him. What we have here, then, are two brothers trapped in a snake grip of hatred from which they can never let go. In psychology this is called “symbiosis.”
Part Four. Donald’s 6 Moral Flaws.
1. Driven by spite and cowardice, Donald sabotages his own life in order to make Pete bail him out again and again and again. This is Donald’s cowardly and passive-aggressive way of punishing Pete for what he did to him during childhood. Donald embodies the saying, “Bite my nose to spite your face.”
2. He uses religion to judge others while ignoring his own egregious flaws. In other words, Donald is a pompous ass.
3. Donald is stuck in a life of stagnation though he deludes himself with clichés that he is “breaking his pattern” (192)
4. Donald is stuck on a sense of lugubrious identity known as “victimization.” He is both overcome by spite and self-pity. As a result of seeing himself as a victim, he has reached a point of no return in which he is both undateable and unemployable.
5. As long as Donald can scapegoat Pete for all his problems, he never has to grow up and take accountability for his own actions.
6. Donald is big on generosity but only with his brother’s money, not his own.
Part Five. The 7 Qualities of Symbiosis
1. Two weak people merge to hide and reinforce their flaws.
2. Two people become mutually dependent on the other in order to stop changing, growing, maturing, and fulfilling their potential.
3. Two people use each other as a crutch and an excuse for their stagnation in life.
4. One person gets stronger and stronger or so he thinks while the other gets weaker and weaker. In truth, both get weaker and weaker because bother are more and more dependent on the other.
5. Two people stay together, not because of love, but because of weakness, hatred, and fear.
6. In a symbiosis, both people are blind or fail to admit how dependent they are on the other. On page 201 we see that Pete has a dream about Donald in which Pete is blind.
7. To use a psychological cliché, both parties of the symbiosis are called “enablers,” that is they perpetuate each other’s dysfunctions.
Part Six. Who is undergoing the “Back in the World” journey and why?
Pete is going through the journey of facing his culpability in continuing to cripple his brother. As a child he resorted to violence. Now he is killing his brother by being like the doting mother, an enabler.
Pete is a centrifugal character while Donald is incurably centripetal.
Part Seven.
Pete, _________, and ___________ experience “Back in the World Moments,” which can be generally defined as waking up to the reality that you have been denying, to your detriment, for an intractable duration. This waking up consists of ____________________, ___________________________, _______________________, and ________________________________.
1. confronting your convenient ignorance or naïveté
2. confronting your own culpability in your demise
3. accepting that the world does not conform to your wants; rather you must often conform to what the world demands of you.
4. being so radically changed by your waking up that you can and will no longer tolerate the status quo
Essay 4 Back in the World
Using at least two stories from Tobias Wolff's Back in the World, explain the book's title in your thesis. Successful papers will use personal experience to illustrate your major points.
Paragraph 1: Introduction
Paragraph 2: Thesis with 4 or 5 mapping components
Paragraphs 3-9: Support your mapping components
Paragraph 10. Restate your thesis
Last Page: Works Cited with no fewer than 2 sources
Posted at 02:21 PM in Back in the World Lessons | Permalink | Comments (0)
Part
One: Explain the title “Back in the World”
Part
Two. Lexicon
1. Decrepitude (weakened, broken down, the condition of
both brothers)
2. hubris
3. braggadocio
4. culpability
5. symbiosis
6. passive-aggressive
7. scapegoat
8. sibling rivalry
9. stagnation
10.
status quo
11.
spite—an impulse for
revenge that hurts you more than the person you hate.
12.
Insanity— doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting different results. (Albert Einstein)
13.
centrifugal
14.
centripetal
Part Three. Pete’s 6 Moral Flaws
1. He worships money, seeing it as a solution for
everything.
2. He suffers from a brand of obnoxious smug pride rooted
in his wealth. (“Grow up and get a Mercedes.”) In fact, Pete is not rich at all
as evidenced by the story’s ironic title “The Rich Brother.” Pete in fact is
anything but “rich.” He is impoverished by his condition of helplessness and
moral decrepitude. Pete covers his flaws with a pose of hubris and braggadocio.
3. He sees things only at face value without digging
deeper because he is afraid of what he will find.
4. He is afraid to confront his culpability for the past,
namely, his role in hating on his brother Donald through his rivalry and blind
ambition.
5. Pete is a liar to his brother and to himself. For
example on page 197 he lies about his dreams, claiming he only dreams about sex
and money when in fact he is haunted by guilt for the sins he once committed
against Donald. On 199 and 200 we find that Pete tried to kill his brother
after an operation because he was jealous of the way his mother doted on
Donald. Ironically, now it’s Pete who dotes on Donald and in doing so he
assures that he keeps Donald crippled, which is to his advantage, or so he
seeks.
6. He is afraid to confront his current role as Donald’s
“mother,” which is ironic since he in a way attempted to steal Donald’s mother
from him. In other words, Pete is dependent on Donald being dependent on him.
What we have here, then, are two brothers trapped in a snake grip of hatred
from which they can never let go. In psychology this is called “symbiosis.”
Part
Four. Donald’s 6 Moral Flaws.
1. Driven by spite and cowardice, Donald sabotages his
own life in order to make Pete bail him out again and again and again. This is
Donald’s cowardly and passive-aggressive way of punishing Pete for what he did
to him during childhood. Donald embodies the saying, “Bite my nose to spite
your face.”
2. He uses religion to judge others while ignoring his
own egregious flaws. In other words, Donald is a pompous ass.
3. Donald is stuck in a life of stagnation though he
deludes himself with clichés that he is “breaking his pattern” (192)
4. Donald is stuck on a sense of lugubrious identity
known as “victimization.” He is both overcome by spite and self-pity. As a
result of seeing himself as a victim, he has reached a point of no return in
which he is both undateable and unemployable.
5. As long as Donald can scapegoat Pete for all his
problems, he never has to grow up and take accountability for his own actions.
6. Donald is big on generosity but only with his
brother’s money, not his own.
Part
Five. The 7 Qualities of Symbiosis
1. Two weak people merge to hide and reinforce their
flaws.
2. Two people become mutually dependent on the other in
order to stop changing, growing, maturing, and fulfilling their potential.
3. Two people use each other as a crutch and an excuse
for their stagnation in life.
4. One person gets stronger and stronger or so he thinks
while the other gets weaker and weaker. In truth, both get weaker and weaker
because bother are more and more dependent on the other.
5. Two people stay together, not because of love, but
because of weakness, hatred, and fear.
6. In a symbiosis, both people are blind or fail to admit
how dependent they are on the other. On page 201 we see that Pete has a dream
about Donald in which Pete is blind.
7. To use a psychological cliché, both parties of the
symbiosis are called “enablers,” that is they perpetuate each other’s
dysfunctions.
Part
Six. Who is undergoing the “Back in the World” journey and why?
Pete
is going through the journey of facing his culpability in continuing to cripple
his brother. As a child he resorted to violence. Now he is killing his brother
by being like the doting mother, an enabler.
Pete
is a centrifugal character while Donald is incurably centripetal.
Part Seven.
Pete, _________, and ___________ experience “Back in the World Moments,”
which can be generally defined as waking up to the reality that you have been
denying, to your detriment, for an intractable duration. This waking up
consists of ____________________, ___________________________,
_______________________, and ________________________________.
1. confronting your convenient ignorance or naïveté
2. confronting your own culpability in your demise
3. accepting that the world does not conform to your
wants; rather you must often conform to what the world demands of you.
4. being so radically changed by your waking up that you
can and will no longer tolerate the status quo
Part Eight. Journal Entry
Write about a sibling rivalry that contains the symbiosis evident in Donald and Pete
Posted at 02:15 PM in Back in the World Lessons | Permalink | Comments (0)
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