Lesson Plan for Week 2: General Thoughts and Notes

Major topics:

1. Thought for the day:

   The old man rose and gazed into my face
   and said that was official recognition
   that I was now a dual citizen.

   He therefore desired me when I got home
   to consider myself a representative
   and to speak on their behalf in my own tongue.

   Their embassies, he said, were everywhere
   but operated independently
   and no ambassador would ever be relieved.

   — Seamus Heaney, From the Republic of Conscience (p. 277 in Opened Ground).

2. Administrative Issues:
   • Is everyone all right after this year's Deltopia weekend?
   • Students in my 5 p.m. section: is anyone willing to switch to my 6 p.m. section? There's a lot of room in there, and this section is currently full.
   • Section issues? Crashing? Other registration/administrative issues?
   • There's an extra-credit point for the first person to correctly answer a question available on the section Twitter stream. Just sayin'.
3. Questions for discussion:
   1. What is the awakening to which the title refers that Edna Pontellier undergoes during the novel? To what does she awaken?
   2. Take a look at Edna's description of her own thoughts in chapter VII of The Awakening (bottom of page 21 in the paperback edition, bottom of page 20 in the .pdf edition). In what ways is this an Impressionist form of narration, as Professor Waid called it? What is unusual about her narration of her own conscious processes, in comparison to earlier writers? How is this similar to and different from other uses of the stream-of-consciousness technique with which you may be familiar?
   3. Why does Edna decide to end her own life?