Dead Father's Club Exam; Socratic Seminar; Back to Mythology

Period 1:

Please take the open-book/notes exam on The Dead Father's Club in our Google classroom. You may use your books/notes, but you will only have 1 period to complete the exam.

If you finish early, you may work on your portfolio. Portfolios are due next Thursday. No late portfolios will be accepted for the marking period.

Period 2: We will have a Socratic Seminar on The Dead Father's Club.

Consider some of these questions:

• Philip observes, “If you speak to yourself people think you are mad but if you write the same things they think you are clever.” Discuss examples from life or literature that bear out this observation on the nature of madness and intelligence. How might you use this idea to free yourself as a writer?
• Discuss the effectiveness or non-effectiveness of having the story told through the perspective (POV) of Phillip. How might the book be a different experience if told through Leah, or Philip's mother or Uncle Alan, or one of the other characters? 
• Philip routinely omits standard punctuation and sometimes arranges words on the page to add visual meanings to the verbal significance of his writing. How do these devices influence the experience of reading the novel? [Writing challenge: try something of the sort in your fiction...]
• Haig’s characters, including Uncle Alan (Claudius), Philip’s mother (Gertrude), Leah (Ophelia), and Ross and Gary (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) have clear parallels in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Nevertheless, these characters have been reimagined with traits and motivations that distinguish them from their Shakespearean models. Choose a character from The Dead Fathers Club and comment how intertextuality helps us understand or interpret that character's actions or characterization in the novel. How has Haig altered the character? What do you think of these changes? Is it necessary to be very familiar with Hamlet to enjoy the novel? Why or why not? [Writing challenge: use a famous story, film, or play and retell it using intertextuality. Aim to reimagine the original story or plot in unique ways to make your story at once familiar, but also creative and original.]
• Comment on the social and intellectual class system or restrictions that surround the characters. To what social or economic class do they belong? To what extent is Haig’s novel shaped by issues of class? For example, if Phillip was very wealthy, how might his story differ? 
• What is the most useful way to understand the spirit that we come to know as Philip’s father’s ghost? Should he be thought of as a character, as an embodiment of Philip’s anxieties, as a demonic presence, a mental defense, a metaphor, or as something else? Why does Philip trust him for so long? How long did you go along with the ghost's ideas as you read? When do we stop trusting the ghost (if ever...?)
• Does Haig’s telling of the story give Philip sufficient motives for his extreme and sometimes anti-social or criminal behavior or conduct? Do you find Philip believable and/or interesting as a character? Why or why not?
• How might Phillip be like Hercules in this novel? Are there other traditional heroes in the book?
• Other issues? Consider the book's character, plot, setting, style, POV, language, theme, etc. 

After our discussion, back to mythology...

Here are some other important strong men in mythology:

• Sampson

• Superman
• The Hulk & The Hulk (Character Bio)
• Gilgamesh (see homework) 

In his book Pathways to Bliss, Joseph Campbell defines four functions of myths:

• Evoke existential thought (answer: what is the meaning of my life?)
• Present an image of the cosmos (and your relation to it)
• Validate society or culture (& its rules)
• Make sense of a person's stages of life (birth, adolescence, adulthood, old age, death)

Joseph Campbell's hero's journey

• Crash Course #25 (Hero's Journey)

Writing challenge: Use Campbell's theories and Jungian archetypes in a story of your own. You can combine this with intertextuality, mythology, stream of consciousness, or any other idea we have covered so far in this course. If you create anything (a draft or more) put it in your writing portfolio!

HOMEWORK: Read Chapter 1 of The Epic of Gilgamesh. Bring your packets back with you to next class. Upload any writing you would like your workshop groups to review. We will conduct a workshop/writing session next class. Portfolios are due, again, by next Thursday, Nov. 1.