An Undiscovered Country

"The hot quest for the Ever-undiscovered Country over the hill" (200).
Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim (1900)

Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" (1953), 137-53

1. what is the grandmother wearing, and why?
2. what does the old lady's desire to paint a portrait of a "pickaninny" naked, in front of his house (139), reveal about her character?
3. do you agree with the grandmother's self-evaluation of herself as having "a naturally sunny disposition" (141)?
4. is the grandmother committed to the truth? Is it easy to characterize her as either a "good" or "bad" woman?
5. what sets in motion the events that lead to the car's turning over?
6. the grandmother recognizes the driver of the car that stops by their overturned car, but can't place the face, exactly (146). Why not?
7. why, exactly, does this other car stop?
8. what does the Misfit's appearance (146) signal about his character?
9. why might children make the Misfit nervous (146, 147)?
10. does the Misfit think himself a "good man"?
11. in what way did the Misfit distinguish himself from his siblings when younger?
12. do the woods in this tale appear friendly, ominous, or indifferent to humanity?
13. the Misfit reports that a psychologist in the penitentiary told him he had killed his father, which he denies (150). What might the shrink have actually been saying?
14. why does the old lady repeatedly tell the Misfit that he should pray (149, 150, 152)?
15. the Misfit implies that his criminal career was determined by being "'buried alive'" in a penitentiary after doing something uncharacteristically wrong (149), and claims more directly that the punishment he has received in the past has not matched the crimes he has committed (151). Does O'Connor appear to agree, blaming his antisocial behavior on his environment, and implicitly exonerating him from his actions?
16. does the story encourage us to identify either the Misfit or the old lady as the more sinful party? Does the story answer the Misfit's query about why "'one is punished a heap and another ain't punished at all'" (151)?
17. according to the Misfit, in what ways did Jesus throw "'everything off balance'" (151, 152)?
18. the narrator identifies the moment when the old lady touches the Misfit, calling him "'one of my babies . . . one of my children!'" (152) as a moment of clarity (152), yet he is obviously not her child (nothing in the story supports this). Why, then, does the narrator claim that her "head [had] cleared for an instant" (152)?
19. the Misfit claims the grandmother would have been a good woman all her life is she had constantly lived under the threat of death (153), suggesting that she was a better person the last 6-7 pages of the story. Can you find evidence of this goodness?
20. O'Connor's protagonists--often anti-heroes--frequently have an epiphany towards the end of their respective stories. Does this tale have one, or two, such characters--one or two such epiphanies?

Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim (1900), chps. 36-45

1. how would it alter the novel to end it with chapter 35 instead of continuing through to chapter 45?
2. the “‘privileged man’” who receives that Marlow’s correspondence about Jim’s final days apparently told Marlow--two years earlier--that “‘“giving your life”’” to those of a foreign culture is “‘“like selling your soul to a brute”’”  unless one’s actions are grounded in a firm belief in “‘the morality of an ethical progress’” (201).  This individual apparently told Marlow that one cannot sacrifice one’s life in a worthy way unless one holds such a belief.  Does Jim? If so, in what does he believe?
3. does Marlow believe that Jim’s family’s Christian faith gave them the imaginative capacity to envision the struggles faced by sailors (202-203)?
4. is Marlow correct that Jewel does “‘not grasp the real sense of what she was telling [him]’” (207)?
5. does Jim sink into the same swamp enveloping the other would-be leaders in this novel, or emerge as something special?
6. putting aside Cornelius’ jealousy of Jim for a moment, consider why else the older man might call Jim a “fool” (218, 224).
7. does learning about “Gentleman” Brown’s past dalliance with the wife of a missionary (209, 228) make him more sympathetic, or less so?
8. since the self-absorbed and duplicitous Brown is the one describing his private exchange with Jim, we don’t have access to Jim’s true feelings about the conversation—and only limited understanding of how Jim responds to Brown’s words.  Does Brown unwittingly say anything certain to a reaction deep within Jim?'
9. how much does Marlow trust Brown’s account of his time in Patusan?
10. Jim told Marlow he had not yet lost sight of why he came to Patusan—not yet forgotten the shameful event that pursues him (181).  Has he successfully escaped this memory by the end of the novel?
11. whose narrative perspective takes over most of the narrative left after Marlow report Brown’s extended interaction with Jim? How frequently does Brown's perspective reappear?
12. how effective a leader does Jewel prove when left in charge of the fort?
13. Marlow proves unwilling to divulge what he learned from Jewel about that hour or more she had alone with Him following Dain Waris’ death (242).  What arguments do you imagine she used in her efforts to alter Jim’s planned course of action?
14. when Jim tells Jewel, “‘“Nothing can touch me,”’” what does he mean, and do you think Marlow correct to interpret this as a “‘last flicker of superb egoism’” (244)?
15. which of the two options given us by Marlow do you, personally, gravitate towards--the portrait of Jim as an "inscrutable" and "excessively romantic" man who achieves "extraordinary success," or the vision of one driven by an "exalted egoism" who marries himself to "a shadowy ideal of conduct" (246)?

Several Circles (1926)
Wassily Kandinsky

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu