course guidelines path 1 calendar path 2 calendar essay prompts class discussion



ornamental line

The Sociology of Sex

"Sex was fast losing its meaning without the
endless prodding of mass hypnosis."
Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (1954)


Points for Reflection

Wilfred Owen's "Disabled" (1917)

  1. this poem opens by describing the poem's subject in the third person, establishing the narrative voice as that of the narrator and not the man with the disability. Should we, then, assume that the phrases "ghastly suit" (l.2) and "saddening like a hymn" (l.4) are the product of the narrator's own perspective? Might they be shaped instead by the wheelchair-bound subject?
  2. how did the male subject "throw away" his knees" (l.9), and what does this metaphor suggest about his attitude towards the event in question?
  3. what aspects of his past does the male subject idealize most readily?
  4. why did this individual join the military in the first place?
  5. why might a religious man ask our newly disabled subject about the state of his soul (ll.37-39)?
  6. why does the poem suggest that our subject will spend only "a few sick years" in institutes (l.40)?
  7. does the kind of prejudice experienced by the subject of our poem still characterize the experience of similarly disabled men and women in contemporary American society? What kinds of attitudes have you seen directed at soldiers recently returning from overseas? Does the presence of a disability affect society's construction of the soldier's heroism in some way?

I Am Legend, chps. 1-14

  1. what large-scale event preceded the advent of the vampire?
  2. why does Robert not relocate to a posh hotel room?
  3. why does Robert shun employing the empirical method for so long?
  4. which of Robert's scientific lines of enquiry yield the most useful, vampire-related insights?
  5. does memory serve more as a useful scientific tool or a burdensome chain around Robert's intellect? [sec 01: Jane S]
  6. does Robert's imagination help or hinder him? [sec 01: Salva R-P]
  7. is Robert able to reject the notions of morality and God consistently and whole-heartedly? Is this success or failure significant?
  8. how convincing is Robert's explanation for why vampires fear the cross?
  9. at what points is Robert's frustrated sexual desire the strongest?
  10. what variables/conditions slow the expansion of Robert's scientific enterprise?
  11. do the arts retain the powers to invigorate or soothe that they wielded before the vampires’ advent?
  12. can we generate an answer to the question Robert asks himself, about why he always experiments on female vampires instead of male ones (49-50)?
  13. what does this story owe to (then) recent events in the first half of the twentieth century?
  14. has humor died with most of the population? Is Robert able to find amusement in anything at all?
  15. how does the single, brief appearance of a black man in this novel compare with the similarly swift entrance and disappearance of a black man in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man?
  16. can you identify any similarities between Robert’s experience with vampires and America’s experience with COVID-19? [sec 02: Maddie W]
  17. does literature lose its power to inform, direct, and inspire the living?
  18. do the motivation, behavior, or intellectual capacity of the living dead vampires resemble that of humans?
  19. as revealed by occasional flashbacks, how has the cataclysm altered Robert Neville, its sole survivor?
  20. does loneliness eventually lose its powerful hold on Robert?
  21. how do Robert's powers of reason help him?
  22. why, presumably, do vampires not like mirrors?
  23. does the plot suggest the human intellect is powerful enough to solve all problems faced by humanity?
  24. what tone dominates Robert's drunken dissertation in defense of vampires?
  25. Robert concludes the vampire phenomenon can be explained by a germ.  Does Richard Matheson, who Brooklyn Technical High School in the early 1940s—an elite magnet school specializing in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—appear to have a solid grasp on the way germs function?
  26. does alcohol consumption prove more deleterious than helpful?
  27. why has Robert Neville not taken his own life?
  28. is Robert more in touch with reality and his own humanity at the end of chapter fourteen than he is at the beginning of the novel?


painting of female vampire in nightgown hovering over unconscious man on bed
The Vampire (1892)
Philip Burne-Jones

 

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu