Notes for 19 April 2016

LITCS 111
Teaching Associate: Patrick Mooney
Bldg. 494, room 160B
Spring 2016

• Questions? Problems? Difficulties? Raves?
• Who's talking in the long narrative paragraph from 382–386 (ch. 16)?
• Opening reading-journal write (5–7 minutes): What role do gossip and public knowledge play at this point in Light in August?
• Discussion: how do we interpret this novel? What is our hermeneutic process?
• Other points for discussion:
  • At first it shocked him: the abject fury of the New England glacier exposed suddenly to the fire of the New England biblical hell. [...] the practical advice of a combined priest and banker and trained nurse. (258; ch. 12)
  • within six months she was completely corrupted. [...] I better move. I better get away from here. (260; ch. 12)
  • It was something out of the darkness, the earth, the dying summer itself: [...] Not yet, dear God. Not yet, dear God. (264; ch. 12)
  • This was how the third phase began. [...] Do you realise, she said, that you are wasting your life? And he sat looking at her like a stone, as if he could not believe his own ears. (268; ch. 12; follow-up conversation on 276–77)
  • Then he would leave. [...] I had to do it. She said so herself (279–80; ch. 12)
  • There was nothing for them to look at except the place where the body had lain and the fire. [...] for someone to crucify. (288–89; ch. 13) (and next paragraph)
  • And Hightower leans there in the window, in the August heat [...] to not understand (318; very end of ch. 13)
  • He felt no surprise. Time, the spaces of light and dark, [...] he could never know if his eyes would open next upon sunlight or upon stars. (333–34; ch. 14)
  • He comes up behind the chair and looks down into it. [...] and a movement of the folded hands as Hightower sits up. (363; ch. 16)
  • Waiting, watching the street and the gate from the dark study window, Hightower hears the distant music when it first begins. [...] beneath the cool soft blowing of faith and hope. (366–67; ch. 16)
  • It's because I. . . . . . . [...] [...] She never even knew if it was still alive or not until― (370–71; ch. 16)
  • And I waited, and after Christmas Eupheus came home, and he wouldn't tell me. [...] Like he believed I didn't believe what it said. (380–81; ch. 16)