Explores art - how an it recreate human conciousnessemphasis on experimentation to discover what art is(i.e. - German expressivism in "Emperor Jones" - Little Formless Fears) artist is aware of himself as creator of art / meaning. Breaking pre-existing tradition
3rd wave - deconstructionist view (interrogates status quo)is concept of m/f real? biological or social? sex is cultural and medical invention, nothing essential to gender (women not less violent, men more)
- charity never fails) with phenomena and signification; doesn't dwell on intention. Consequence: academic, real, social; means different than what the author meant?Every encounter with iteration requires interpretation (intention can be misunderstood)Literature is retelling literature - structure already existingevolved into poststructuralism - meaning not so clearIf iteration - intention not represent completely, may be different from what author intendedRemove intentional fallacy (author is dead!)Open up possible meanings.Not subjective - must find something in text to prove interpretation.Post - breaks down structures (what is woman?)Power to reader - intent doesn't matter
They migrated to Germany and then, during the rise of Adolf Hitler, to the United States. They have a son and live in a big city, probably New York. The Son: Mentally deranged twenty-year-old who was born when his mother was in middle age. He suffers from a rare form of paranoia in which he believes that natural and man-made objects are conspiring against him.
Nurse: Staff member in a sanitarium where the son is under treatment. Telephone Caller: Woman who telephones the mother and father late at night and asks for a person named Charlie. Others: Characters mentioned in the narration. These include the following:Isaac: The father's brother, whom the mother and father refer to as "the Prince.
" Isaac, who also lives in the U.S., supports the mother and father. Mrs. Sol: Next-door neighbor of the mother and father.
She wears a lot of makeup. Girl With Dark Hair: Bus passenger whom the mother and father observe. The girl is crying on the shoulder of a woman. Rebecca Borisovna: Minsk acquaintance of the mother and father. Rebecca's Daughter: Woman in Minsk who married a member of the Soloveichik family. Herman Brink: Person who identifies the mental illness of the son.
German Maid: Servant of the mother and father in Leipzig, Germany. Fiancé of the Maid Aunt Rosa: Mother's relative, who was killed by the Germans. Dr. Solov: The physician of the mother and father.
Elsa: Acquaintance of the mother in the old country. Boyfriend of ElsaPoint of View.....
..The author tells the story in omniscient third-person point of view, enabling him to present the thoughts of the mother, father, and son.Plot Summary By Michael J. Cummings.
..© 2012....
...It is Friday, the birthday of a twenty-year-old man in a sanitarium in a large American city.
He suffers from a rare form of paranoia called referential mania, in which he believes nature and certain man-made objects conspire against him. For example, he imagines that clouds make signs to one another to exchange detailed information about him. At night, trees use sign language to convey to one another his deepest thoughts. ...
....His parents—Russian Jewish immigrants—had been married many years before he was born.
(The author does not identify them or their son by name.) Now the parents are old. This year, as in the previous years, they are taking him a birthday gift carefully selected to please him. He generally interprets fabricated objects—those considered gadgets, for example—as either evil or useless. So they purchased him a basket containing ten small jars of different jellies.
The mother dresses for the occasion in a black dress with no makeup. ...
....Before coming to the U.S.
, the father had been a successful businessman. Now, however, he depends on his brother, Isaac—an American citizen for almost forty years—for money. He and his wife call him "the Prince." ...
....When they are on their way the sanitarium, the subway breaks down; they must sit in silence for fifteen minutes. After leaving the subway, they wait a long time for a bus to take them the rest of the way.
It is loaded with noisy high school students. After reaching their destination, they walk through pouring rain to the sanitarium entrance. Once inside, there is more waiting. Finally, a nurse they do not like arrives to inform them their son had attempted suicide. He is all right now, she says, but a visit is out of the question; it might upset him.
Since the sanitarium is understaffed and items left for patients tend to get mixed up, they take the gift home with them. On the bus ride back to the subway station, the mother notices a girl crying on the shoulder of a woman. The girl reminds her of Rebecca Borisovna, a woman she knew in Minsk, Russia, long ago. .
....
..Their son's last suicide attempt to escape the prison of his mind was "a masterpiece of inventiveness," a doctor observed. One patient who thought he was trying to learn how to fly intervened, out of envy, inadvertently saving his life.
In addition to believing that clouds and trees are plotting against him, he perceives pebbles, flecks of sunlight, or stains as symbols and signs forming messages that he must intercept. Pools of water and glass surfaces are spies. Coats in store windows are "prejudiced witnesses," the narrator says, and storms and running water "have a distorted opinion of him and grossly misrepresent his actions." He spends every waking moment decoding the meaning of what he sees.
However, he poses no threat to people, for he does not perceive them as part of a conspiracy. Besides, he believes he is superior to them. ....
...At home after supper, the father retires to bed while the mother looks at a photo album with old pictures. A photo falls out.
It is a picture of her German maid in Leipzig and her fiancé. The scene reminds her of places and events: Minsk, the Russian revolution, Berlin, and her house in Leipzig. There is a picture of her son when he was four and one of Aunt Rosa, "a fussy, angular, wild-eyed old lady," the narrator says, "who had lived in a tremulous world of bad news, bankruptcies, train accidents, cancerous growths—until the Germans put her to death, together with all the people she had worried about." .
....
..Another photo of her son shows him at age six, when he sketched pictures of birds with the feet and hands of humans and suffered bouts of insomnia. Another shows him at age eight, when he was afraid of wallpaper in their home and of a picture of a landscape.
Still another shows him at ten, when the family emigrated to America. She then remembers the time when he was recovering from pneumonia and became delusional. No one could reach him. He had slipped into a world of his own.
....
...She accepted his fate and, the narrator says, She thought of the endless waves of pain that for some reason or other she and her husband had to endure; of the invisible giants hurting her boy in some unimaginable fashion; of the incalculable amount of tenderness contained in the world; of the fate of this tenderness, which is either crushed, or wasted, or transformed into madness;of neglected children humming to themselves in unswept corners; of beautiful weeds that cannot hide from the farmer and helplessly have to watch the shadow of his simian stoop leave mangled flowers in its wake, as the monstrous darkness approaches...
....
.After midnight, her husband staggers into the living room and says he is dying. She thinks his stomach is the problem and suggests that they call a physician. But he wants no doctors..
.....
."We must get him out of there quick," he says. "Otherwise we'll be responsible. Responsible!".
....
..Apparently he believes that if they do not bring their son home, he will kill himself and they will be to blame. The telephone rings and a girl asks for Charlie.
The mother informs her that she has the wrong number. The father then tells the mother that they will get their son the first thing in the morning. The telephone rings again, and the same girls asks for Charlie. The mother again tells her she has the wrong number, probably because she dialed a zero instead of the letter O.
....
...The two of them then have tea. The father examines the jars of jelly—apricot, quince, and other flavors. Once more the telephone rings.
.....
..(The narration ends here. It is up to the reader to interpret the meaning of the story. One possibility—based on imagery in the story—is that the third call is from the sanitarium, where a representative is about to inform the mother and father that their son has successfully committed suicide. For additional information on the ending, see Signs, Symbols, and the Third Call, below.
)Tone and Conflict......
.The tone of the story is somber. The son is in conflict with his bizarre illness and the threatening signs and symbols that he sees. The parents are also in conflict with his illness, along with the institution housing him.
..Theme: Living Worlds Apart in the Same World....
...Life has cursed the elderly Jewish mother and father with suffering and hardship. They left Minsk (formerly a Russian city but now a city in Belarus) during or after the turbulent Russian Revolution and settled in Germany during the rise of fanatical anti-Semitism. One of the mother's relatives, Aunt Rosa, died at the hands of the Germans.
.....
..Meanwhile, the couple had their son to worry about. He was exhibiting frightening signs of a strange mental illness. After the couple emigrated to the United States when the boy was ten, they placed him in a special school where he encountered "ugly, vicious backward children." In time, after suffering a bout of pneumonia, he began living in a different reality, one beyond the accessibility of normal human beings.
An article in a scientific journal described his illness as a rare form of paranoia called referential mania. By this time, the father—a successful businessman in the old country—was relying completely on his brother, Isaac, a thriving American citizen, for financial support. Life was hard. ..
....
.Eventually the couple committed their son to a sanitarium. Inside his mind, "invisible giants" were assaulting him, and the mother and father were powerless to help him. So it was that the parents suffered in one reality while their son suffered in another reality. In his reality, clouds, trees, coats, running water, and wallpaper were conspiring against him—just as the anti-Semites conspired against his parents in Europe and just as poverty and other woes conspired against them in America. .
....
..Perhaps the greatest anguish of all, though, is that they cannot communicate with him, and he cannot communicate with anyone. And then there are the mysterious telephone calls in which the caller cannot get through to anyone either.
.....
..Human beings live in worlds apart while living in the same world. And it is not only mental debility that separates them through differing perceptions of reality; it is also political ideologies, economic systems, scientific theories, religious beliefs, and culture.
Signs, Symbols, and the Third Call.....
..Ominous signs and symbols confront not only the son in his world but also the mother and father in their world. Examples are their signs and symbols are the subway that loses "its life current," the report that their son has attempted suicide, a dying bird in a puddle, the girl crying on the shoulder of a woman, the photograph of the relative killed by the Nazis. Do all of these foreshadow bad news at the end of the story—namely that the third telephone call will report that the son has succeeded in killing himself? .
.....
.That outcome is a possibility. Nabokov leaves the interpretation up to the reader.
Arnold has pale, almost translucent skin; his hair looks like a wig; and he appears both old and young at the same time. Ellie - A friend of Arnold's. He seems mostly indifferent to what's happening but offers to disconnect Connie's telephone, an offer Arnold refuses. Connie's Mother - A near-constant source of frustration for Connie.
Connie's mother envies Connie's youth and beauty, which she herself has lost. June - Connie's older sister. Twenty-four years old, overweight, and still living at home, she is a placid, dutiful daughter.
June, 24, sister, mature; father busyJune goes out, Connie can, too. Eats dinner with Eddie, sees gold convertible, then another day comes to her house. Stalker - tries to get her into the car, she is afraid. He threatens to hurt her family, she grabs the phone, he stabs (rapes?) her. Quietly he says going, she follows.
She has been hired primarily as a means of avoiding a sex-discrimination suit, and her male colleagues do not treat her seriously. Zoë's sense of ironic humor quickly degenerates into sarcasm, and her student evaluations are slipping. She finds her students good-natured enough, but inane, lacking even minimal intellectual curiosity about anything historical or geographic.Zoë manages to plug along in her job, saving herself by frequent trips or vacations away from the Midwest, where every man expects her to be a physically mature version of Heidi, the charming Swiss orphan in the Johanna Spyri classic novel.
She is writing a book on humor in the American presidency, but her progress is slowed by her meticulous, compulsive revisions. Zoë desperately awaits the arrival of the mail each day and watches television in her bedroom into the late hours of the night. She even buys a house but quickly loses any interest in personalizing it with her own decor. In fact, she is not quite sure that the woman she sees in the mirror each day is herself.
Bonneventure's orphanage for girls. The author is intentionally vague about the race of both girls, so all that is known is that they are not the same race as each other, not that that affects their friendship at all. The story follows Twyla after she is released from St. Bonneventure's. She's in her twenties and working as a waitress when Roberta and two men show up in one of her booths.
Twyla feels self conscious, and regrets the fact that they ever grew apart. Their paths cross again five years later, when Twyla is married and has a son. She comes across Roberta in the grocery store. Roberta is more reserved now, and has two step children of her own; protest on opposite sides. In the heat of a protest, Roberta accuses Twyla of abusing one of the mute servants at the orphanage.
When they see each other again, it's New Year's. They meet a diner; Roberta is surrounded by glittering people in glittering clothes with glittering champagne. Twyla is just popping in for a coffee. Roberta is slightly tipsy, but she grabs Twyla by the shoulders and apologizes to her for the things she said about the servant.
Then she bursts into tears and the novel closes with the women comforting each other.
Naming gives power, man in jail calls "white man". Racism; lynching like picnic. Culture not racist but learn if family are. Cultural appropriation - take someone else's culture. POINT OF STORY: Racism is learned, not inherent
moment of crisis, shares with other white males: blacks are protesting en masse by registering to vote; hints about what he, as deputy sheriff, next day to break up the registration. what he would like to do is escape from the black world (paranoia)To stop the blacks from singing, the sheriff arrested "the ring-leader" and began to beat him senseless; he, as a little boy, had defied this white man for showing disrespect toward his grandmother.
between Terrans and T'Lic - they use humans; they came as refugees - fleeing own kindNOT slavery story - love story; women in dominant positionsCan apply slavery story - anxiety to be absolved of sins of slavery, cheerlead for underprivileged to be forgiven.
Symbiosis but never completely equal - cynical (someone giving more than others) / realistic view (but opposing m/f characters)T'Lic - insectoid (wasp-like/centipede/scorpion) intelligent, have society, human-like. Common? caring/family concerns/adapt to further their society) 1st kept humans in cages, didn't have to/ grown into symbiotic relationship (both benefit) Marxist - still need lower class. Sterile egg - aspect to control - limited choice for Terrans - is sting care or control?Stockholm Syndrome - love for kidnappers because taking care ofDiff. between Terrans and T'Lic - they use humans; they came as refugees - fleeing own kindNOT slavery story - love story; women in dominant positionsCan apply slavery story - anxiety to be absolved of sins of slavery, cheerlead for underprivileged to be forgiven.
He wrote short stories like "Lost in the Funhouse," and novels like The Sot-Weed Factor and The Floating Opera. This story was published in 1968, a time of great upheaval in America (race riots, war, hippies, etc.). This story takes place on Independence Day during World War II. The layout of the story is weird. It looks like there are parts of the story out of order and math problems in the middle.
They all are part of some equations or formula Barth wants you to put together. The crazy nature of the story makes the story a funhouse in itself.MAIN CHARACTERSAmbrose: The main dude of the story. He is at that awkward, thirteen-year-old time in his life.Magda: A fourteen-year-old girl who goes on the vacation with Ambrose's family. PLOTAmbrose takes a trip with his family to Ocean City, Maryland.
Ambrose's parents and uncle sit up front in the car and he sits in the back with Magda and his older brother Peter. During the car ride, they play games. The first game is sighting towers, the other game is cards. Then they arrive in Maryland.
They go to the boardwalk and Ambrose's mom gives him money to go have fun. Ambrose is very nervous because he likes Magda. His older brother acts cool around Magda and Ambrose hates that. He wants to tell Magda that he loves her. Then the kids go in the funhouse. Peter and Magda go off by themselves, and Ambrose is left alone in the funhouse.
THINGS TO MAKE YOU LOOK SMARTThe narrator of this story is aware that the story is written - there are references made to grammar and language, and to the words being fiction. Barth uses the narrator to address issues of story writing - he mentions several different ways the story could end.In the end, the fact that Ambrose is left all alone is very symbolic. The love of his life and his older brother ran off together to another part of the funhouse. Ambrose is left all alone, betrayed, in a hall of mirrors.
Note that the story takes place on Independence Day and how Ambrose is learning about being his own person.The mirrors in the funhouse could be seen as fragments of Ambrose - he is confronted with images of himself, with no way out.The crazy, wacky funhouse could symbolize how Ambrose has trouble finding his way out of his emotions now that Magda has gone off.The funhouse is a huge part of the story. Not only does it represent his love life, but also his awkward stage in life is like a funhouse: nothing makes sense.
He is afraid in the funhouse, like he is afraid in life.The mathematical equations in this story suggest a couple of things: there are parts to Ambrose that he has to figure out, like how he feels and who is growing into. Also, the equations are parts of the story's structure.Barth deconstructs the actual writing of a short story while writing Ambrose's story.
"Lost in the Funhouse" is about the technique of building plot and characters and making things interesting without getting "lost."Barth was a master at analytical writing, but also knew the dangers of it -- sometimes, when you look too closely at things, or study your feelings too much, they don't make sense anymore.The last line of the story suggests that, for writers, or those who create rather than experience, there exists an emptiness - Ambrose, and perhaps Barth, as an author, realized that he will be forever in the role of "constructing funhouses for others," never in the role as the lovers who are allowed inside.
According to one theory, the moon formed when a Mars-sized chunk of rock collided with Earth. After the moon coalesced out of the debris from that impact, it was much closer to Earth than it is today. This idea is taken to it's fanciful limit in Italo Calvino's story "The Distance of the Moon" (from his collection Cosmicomics, translated by William Weaver). The story, narrated by a character with the impossible-to-pronounce name Qfwfq, tells of a strange crew who jump between Earth and moon, and sometimes hover in the nether reaches of gravity between the two.
This reading was part of a live event hosted by Radiolab and Selected Shorts, and it originally aired on WNYC's and PRI's SELECTED SHORTS, paired with a Ray Bradbury classic, "All Summer in a Day," read by musical theater star Michael Cerveris. Hosted by BD Wong, you can
Can include round (3D, fully realized, with flaws and positive attributes) / flat (1 or 2 traits that define them) and dynamic (change) and static (don't change).
