"The Temp" and "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World"

The Importance of appearance:
http://elitedaily.com/news/world/the-importance-of-appearances-man-dresses-as-homeless-man-to-prove-nobody-would-help-him-video/592301/

http://www.ridingthetiger.org/2013/03/19/the-importance-of-appearance/

http://www.byui.edu/Documents/Admin_Offices/Advising/PowerOfPersonalAppearance.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/a-facial-theory-of-politics.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/appearances-mean-nothing-or-everything/?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/fashion/26looks.html?pagewanted=all&module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw

Office Culture:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/opinion/sunday/why-you-hate-work.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=OP_WYH_20140602&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1388552400000&bicmet=1420088400000&_r=3

http://www.forbes.com/sites/vickvaishnavi/2013/03/28/five-must-follow-rules-for-a-successful-office-culture/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/office-culture/

http://www.immihelp.com/newcomer/work-culture-office-environment-usa.html

https://www.themuse.com/advice/rally-the-team-how-to-create-a-cool-office-culture

Culture:

These links discuss cultural differences and also provides a number of links if you go to the bottom of the page. Use the information they provide as outside sources if you are writing your essay about this subject:http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/culture.htm

http://www.worldwide.edu/travel_planner/culture_shock.html

http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijps/article/view/4510

Here is one on the effects of culture shock:http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=effects+culture+shock&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=tIk6T-mJBaLn0QHXj5GXCw&ved=0CBoQgQMwAA

Links for "The Handsomest Drowned Man In the World":

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=THE+HANDSOMEST+DROWNED+MAN+IN+THE+WORLD&as_sdt=1%2C31&as_sdtp=

This week we will look at “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”, “The Temp” and Edward Scissorhands in class. All three of these stories contain individuals that become part of a community in some way and have profound effects of the people. In “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” it is a corpse that washes ashore that gives the townspeople a new way of looking at their lives, in “The Temp” it is a temp hired in an office that changes the atmosphere of the wor enviroment and in Edward Scissorhands it is a unique young man that forces a rather boring town to see how boring and judgmental they really are. This week pay attention to what these “magical strangers” force the people in the stories to look at it in their lives.

"The Sisterhood of the Night" and "The Lottery"

The Sisterhood of the Night

The richest of the stories in this vein is ''The Sisterhood of Night,'' in which Millhauser adopts one of his familiar narrative voices -- the affable small-town archivist explaining some local peculiarity to an inquisitive stranger.

It seems that adolescent girls are going out at night in bands, seeking ''dark and secret places.'' Witchcraft is suspected, and also various unspeakable sexual perversions. ''What shall we do with our daughters?'' is the refrain of the adults. ''Tell us! we cry, our voices shrill with love. Tell us everything! Then we will forgive you.'' When the secret is revealed, we at first suspect that a joke is being made about teen-age girls and their ways. On reflection, we discover more complex meanings, to do with privacy, sanctuary and the unknowability of other minds. It is a lovely, haunting story, whose apparent simplicity masks its true depth.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/10/reviews/980510.10mcgratt.html

Links about film:

http://www.thesisterhoodofnight-movie.com/

Interview with the author:

http://transatlantica.revues.org/562

Salem Witch Trials/Hunt:

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/brief-salem.html

http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/home.html

The Lottery

 Articles on tradition:

This article discusses how different cultures address death:
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/19/local/la-me-0819-lopez-dyingwell-20120819

This link discusses American Culture:
http://www.americanfamilytraditions.com/american_culture.htm

Here is a link to what The Bible has to say about culture:
http://www.openbible.info/topics/traditions

This is an interesting look at how different cultures have different traditions when it comes to childcare:
http://alphamom.com/parenting/interesting-parenting-traditions-from-different-cultures/




Somebody made a short movie based on the story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV03h3XWTDU

Criticism:
http://home.netwood.net/kosenko/jackson.html

http://www.literaryhistory.com/20thC/Jackson.htm
GROUPTHINK:
http://www.psysr.org/about/pubs_resources/groupthink%20overview.htm

http://www.abacon.com/commstudies/groups/groupthink.html

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/theory/grpthink.html

http://boingboing.net/2014/08/05/how-groupthink-gets-reality-ba.html?utm_content=buffer54149&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Questions and Lecture for “Two Kinds” and “Brave We Are”

“Two Kinds” and “Brave We Are”

The main issue we will see in these two stories and the film The Namesake next week is what issues people face when they leave their country of origin and come to America for a better life.

 

1)       Do you think the cultural issues that come up in these two stories are unique to particular cultures or not? Explain.

 

2)      The mother in “Two Kinds” believes there are two kinds of daughters. How does she define the two kinds of daughters and do you think her daughter agrees with her by the end of the story?

 

3)        In ‘Brave We Are” while giving her explanation to her son, what is the narrator’s conflict? What is she concerned about? Should she be? Would you be in this circumstance?

 

4)      To what extent is the meal the narrator is preparing a metaphor for what she is explaining? What does she mean in the last line of the story, “The strand must remain smooth, elusive and separate”?

 

5)      What pressures arise from assimilation? How do families address these issues?

 

6)      How symbols were used in “Brave We Are” to explain some of the issues new Americans face?

a) the meal

b) the song

c) the poem

7)      In “Two Kinds” the mother puts a lot of pressure of her daughter to do well. This can be referred to as her “putting all her eggs in one basket”. Explain how she attempts to shape her daughter’s life in the story

 

Below is a quote from President Obama’s speech in 2012 about America. Keep it in mind for these two stories and the film we will watch this week.

“…The basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement. The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive.”

From a Washington Post Article on our class blog:

"It's difficult to adapt to the culture here," said Maria Jacinto, 32, who moved to the United States 10 years ago with her husband, Aristeo Jacinto, 36. "In the Hispanic tradition, the family comes first, not money. It's important for our children not to be influenced too much by the gueros," she said, using a term that means "blondies" but that she employs generally in reference to Americans. "I don't want my children to be influenced by immoral things."

The Namesake

 

“Alone together in a foreign land in the middle of winter, the shy, polite newlyweds are virtual strangers, and the movie captures their delicate process of mutual accommodation. Ashima’s initiation into American culture has gentle, humorous moments. She is astonished to discover gas stoves that work 24 hours a day and learns the hard way that wool sweaters should not be dumped into a washing machine” (Holden).

 

“In high school Gogol rebels from his family and behaves like a typical pot-smoking, rock-’n’-roll-loving American teenager. On a visit to Calcutta he sneers at Indian ways. After studying architecture at Yale, he falls in love with Maxine (Jacinda Barrett), a stereotypical blonde WASP princess from Long Island. Cultural tensions flare when he brings her home to meet his family, and the couple are expected to withhold any expressions of physical affection, according to Indian tradition” (Holden).

 

“Assimilation is a term referring to another part of the adaptation process initially proposed by Jean Piaget. Through assimilation, we take in new information or experiences and incorporate them into our existing ideas. The process is somewhat subjective, because we tend to modify experience or information somewhat to fit in with our preexisting beliefs” (Cherry).