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Το Σώμα στη Σύγχρονη Αμερικανική Λογοτεχνία

Ενότητα 8

Preparatory questions:

Have you ever thought about death, or terminal illness? If yes, on what occasion? How did it make you feel?

How is death physically portrayed in your culture?

Do you imagine an afterlife? If yes, what do bodies look like in it?

What do you know about AIDS? Do you know any people who are HIV-positive? Do you think it is different that other illnesses?

Theoretician Theodor Adorno said, “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.” Do you think suffering, dead or sick bodies should be a subject for art, or should artists show some respect and refrain?

Supplementary readings:

Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, “From The Culture Industry”

Ερώτηση 1 (Πολλαπλής Επιλογής (Μοναδική Απάντηση) — 1 βαθμός)

The “Danny” portraits:

Oppose stereotypical depictions of disease as abject/pitiful by showing that sick people may still be people with lives, virtues and interests

Oppose stereotypical depictions of disease as abject/pitiful because that makes all gays abject/pitiful

Are only understood in the context of the AIDS controversy in the 1980s

Are criticized for exploiting Danny and treating him as an object of inquiry, not as a suffering human being with needs

Ερώτηση 2 (Πολλαπλής Επιλογής (Μοναδική Απάντηση) — 1 βαθμός)

The attempt “to capture the pain of others”:

Is doomed to fail because those who do the capturing are homophobes

Is doomed to fail because pain cannot be captured if subjects are unwilling

Is doomed to fail because to see it as the pain of others is to misunderstand it

All of the above

Ερώτηση 3 (Πολλαπλής Επιλογής (Μοναδική Απάντηση) — 1 βαθμός)

The title “Sarcophagus” refers to:

The cancer

The operating table

The ritual dimensions of the surgery

All of the above

Ερώτηση 4 (Πολλαπλής Επιλογής (Μοναδική Απάντηση) — 1 βαθμός)

The surgeon’s attitude towards the patient’s body:

Is ambivalent

Is negative

Is encouraging

Is condenscending

Ερώτηση 5 (Πολλαπλής Επιλογής (Μοναδική Απάντηση) — 1 βαθμός)

The surgeon lets the body die despite the anesthesiologist’s opposition:

Because he is in charge, not the anesthesiologist

Because he is tired of fighting an undefeatable disease

Because he wants desperately to take a shower and wash off the blood

Because he must respect the mysteries of life and death

Ερώτηση 6 (Πολλαπλής Επιλογής (Μοναδική Απάντηση) — 1 βαθμός)

Why is the narrator of “Death” so angry?

Because he hated the dead person for being a bastard

Because the dead body is a shameful thing

Because he loved the dead man but couldn’t save him

Because he loved the dead man despite the latter being a bastard

Ερώτηση 7 (Πολλαπλής Επιλογής (Μοναδική Απάντηση) — 1 βαθμός)

In “The Dead Baby,” the attitude towards the ritual of the funeral is:

Ironic

Indifferent

Mournful

Curious

Ερώτηση 8 (Πολλαπλής Επιλογής (Μοναδική Απάντηση) — 1 βαθμός)

Why does the poet in “The Dead Baby” insist in the act of sweeping?

Because sweeping is what you do before events like funerals

Because it sounds like “weeping”

Because one must “sweep” the spirit of the baby out

Because it gives mourners something to occupy their hands and minds with

Ερώτηση 9 (Πολλαπλής Επιλογής (Μοναδική Απάντηση) — 1 βαθμός)

The poet’s overall attitude towards death is that:

It radically transforms the familiar person into an Other

It has a far worse effect on the women than on the men

It shows the cruelty of the neighbors, who do not suffer so

It is bad only when it happens to young people