Sightless Eyes

"He had a fixed idea that if he should not forget before he died
he would have to remember to all eternity" (128).
Joseph Conrad's Almayer's Folly (1895)

Joseph Conrad's Almayer's Folly (1895), chps. 9-12

1. Mem Almayer tells the incredulous Babalatchi that Almayer will kill someone if he learns about their plans to help Nina escape with Dina, that he’s quite capable of killing someone (86-87).  Is she accurate in her assessment of Almayer’s capacity for violence?
2. is Mem Almayer’s advice to Nina, about men, obviously particular to only her own experience, or do her observations have a cross-cultural ring of truth (95-97)?
3. the narrator opens the novel with Almayer gazing at a golden sunset, thinking about the gold which he has earned through above-the-board trade and which his competitors have won through subterfuge and dishonest means.  Does the novel ultimately support Almayer’s claim of personal innocence?
4. A number of characters—including Nina, Babalatchi, and Mrs. Almayer—critique the novel’s representatives of European culture (Almayer, the Dutch sailors, etc.).  Does the novel suggest that their criticism is warranted?
5. does Nina love her father?
6. at the beginning of chp 10, we see Nina briefly doubting her intended course of action (94).  Does the novel later suggest that she has made the wrong decision?
7. is Almayer’s dream (101) the nightmare of a drunk failure, or of all the human race?
8. why has Mrs. Almayer not killed her husband?  She has had many opportunities to do so.  (An answer to this question is not explicitly stated by the text, so you’ll have to perform some deductive reasoning.)
9. is Nature configured as friend or foe?  Is it latent with symbolism, or mere backdrop?  Why might Conrad wait till so late in this particular novel to indulge in detailed descriptions of the river (104), the forest (106), the sea (112), and the sun (120)?
10. does Dain’s love for Nina hold the promise of life-long commitment?
11. does Dain’s love for Nina hold the promise of life-long commitment, or are we encouraged to accept the perspective of both Mem Almayer and Kaspar as concerns a Malay prince’s libido (98, 114)?
12. why does Almayer ask his precious daughter to stop looking him in the face (115)?
13. who yields more to the other, Dain or Nina?  Or, is theirs a mutual deference and submission?
14. why does Almayer not give in to the hopeful dream painted by one half of his psyche (124)?
15. are Almayer’s attempts to erase his memory efficacious?

Flannery O'Connor's "A Late Encounter with the Enemy" (1953), 252-6

1. at what point does free indirect discourse enter into this story's first paragraph; when, that is, can you tell that the character's own diction and opinions have infiltrated and coopted the narrator's voice?
2. what attitude has Sally Poker adopted towards her graduation and degree?
3. if you were to psychoanalyze Sally by interpreting her nightmare (253), what would you conclude?
4. General Sash thinks himself quite handsome; do you concur, given his description?
5. would it be inappropriate to call General Sash a lecherous old man?
6. does the story provide enough details to make any assumptions about the Civil War film at which Mr. Sash received his general's uniform?
7. are we to understand that Mr. Sash's refusal to consider his mortality and his disinterest in the past (257) are a function of his advanced age?
8. what thematic concerns has Flannery O'Connor layered into Mr. Sash's cursing (258)?
9. what does the metaphorical hole which opens up in the old man's head actually represent?
10. the notion of forgetting one's past seems pretty self-explanatory; what does it mean to fail to remember one's future (257, 260)?
11. what apparently creates the black hole in Sash's brain (260), and what does iti allow into his head (260, 261)?
12. do the glimpses of General Sash's past provided to the reader reveal anything important about his character (261)?
13. Does this tale encourage us to relegate Sash’s narrow perspective and memory problems to that dementia which comes with old age, or does it hold him accountable and suggest that he deliberately kept things out of consciousness as long as possible?
    

On White II (1923)
Wassily Kandinsky

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu