The Distance Between Us

AGENDA:

Work on missing work--short stories!  Due FRIDAY!

READ to page 152 in The Distance Between Us and finish over break

CONTESTS: Sokol and Gannon follow instructions on line

Gannon University Poetry Contest

Deadline: Feb. 1

http://www.gannon.edu/Academic-Offerings/Humanities-Education-and-Social-Sciences/Undergraduate/English/Poetry-Contest/

Reyna Grande---Crossing Borders

Please read:

http://reynagrande.com/crossing-borders/

The Distance Between Us/SOKOL

AGENDA:

Write a response to Questions 1-5 and post on the blog.

Check out the links to Reyna Grande on the previous post.

Turn in all missing work!

Wednesday and Friday we will finish viewing Mudbound.

HMWK:
 Read to pg. 102

The Distance Between Us/Discussion Questions

AGENDA:
Check out Reyna Grande's website (see link on blog)

Interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtn_h7iAWY4


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rv-hP6hflU

Discussion Questions
1. Reyna is two years old when her father leaves Iguala for El Otro Lado (the other side). Why does he leave? Why do Reyna, her mother, and her two siblings—Mago and Carlos—stay behind?

2. When Reyna turns four, her father sends for her mother. Reyna, Mago, and Carlos are left to live with their father’s mother (Abuela Evila). Describe Reyna’s feelings regarding her mother’s leaving and her mother’s absence during these early years.

3. Who is “The Man Behind the Glass”? What does he symbolize?

4. Reyna wishes to stay with Abuelita Chinta instead of Abuela Evila. Compare and contrast the two grandmothers and their attitudes and behaviors toward their grandchildren. Are Reyna, Mago, and Carlos better off once they begin living with Abuelita Chinta? Why or why not? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.

5. Who is Élida and why is she favored by Abuela Evila? Is her behavior toward Reyna, Mago, and Carlos justified? Why or why not?

6. In what way does Tía Emperatriz come to the aid of Reyna, Mago, and Carlos? Could she have done more for the three siblings? Why or why not?

7. Describe Reyna’s relationship with her sister Mago. Why does Mago feel responsible for Reyna?

8. Describe the hardships Reyna, Mago, and Carlos face growing up in Iguala.

9. What reactions do the three siblings have when they learn they have a younger sister, Elizabeth? Who seems the most impacted by this news and why?

10. Why does Reyna’s mother, Juana, return alone from the United States? How does life change for Reyna, Mago, and Carlos when she returns?

11. Who is Rey and why do Reyna, Mago, and Carlos not like him? What happens when he visits the family during the holidays?

12. Compare and contrast Mago’s and Reyna’s feelings toward their mother as time after time she chooses her own needs over those of her children. Does she love her children? Use evidence from the text to support your response.

13. As Carlos matures, he has a need for a father figure. Identify the male role models in his life and explain the influences they have on his development.

14. When Reyna’s father returns from the United States after an eight-year absence, Reyna is almost ten. How does she feel about his return? Why does he return and why does he offer to take Mago back to the United States with him? Why does he want to leave Reyna and Carlos behind?

15. How does Reyna feel about the possible separation from Mago? Why does their father decide to take all three children back with him? Describe their harrowing journey. Is life better for them once they reach the United States? Support your answer with evidence from the text.

16. Mila is Natalio’s second wife. What are Reyna’s earliest perceptions of her? What influence does Milo have on Reyna, Mago, and Carlos?

17. Reyna attends school in both Mexico and the United States. Compare and contrast her experiences in both places. What can readers learn about the challenges poor children have in negotiating school?

18. Reyna does not speak English when she enters school in the United States. How does she overcome this challenge? How is she received by her teachers? By her classmates? What accounts for her ability to succeed?

19. Reyna’s father believes in education and supports Mago and Carlos when they enroll in college. Why does he not help Reyna? How does his refusal impact Reyna?

20. To whom does Reyna owe thanks for her success? Why? Do you agree or disagree and why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

MUDBOUND/Finish short stories

AGENDA:

Watch Mudbound.

Finish short stories.

Get new book.

Prayer for the Dying TEST/Scholastic

Prayer for the Dying Essay Test

Today, read over the following discussion questions and write a thoughtful response to one of them in essay form.    Develop your response using specific examples from the book.  You may use your book, of course. Length: at least 1 page single spaced using text references cited in MLA format

These questions require thoughtful answers focused on what O'Nan has written.  

Link to blog:

http://thelibrarium.wordpress.com/2006/11/24/discussion-starters-for-a-prayer-for-the-dying/

1)  A Prayer for the Dying uses as its epigraph a quote from Albert Camus: “There is no escape in a time of plague. We must choose to either love or to hate God.”  How does A Prayer for the Dying illustrate this quote?  Do you believe that Camus is correct in presenting the choice we must make in such stark terms?
—– 
2) Richard Eder, in his review of A Prayer for the Dying, writes:

[Jacob Hanson, the protagonist] is, he tells us, the town sheriff. He is the minister. He is the undertaker.
This wacky accumulation expresses his obsession: Out of the destruction of the war, when God seemed to have vanished, Jacob is determined to reinvent Him. He cares for his town as God is supposed to care for the world: He punishes transgressions, provides faith for the living and passage for the dead. “Credo quia absurdum” — the classic religious formula of, roughly, “I believe even to absurdity” — becomes, as horrors multiply, its own horror: I believe right on into madness.

What are your feelings about Jacob’s descent into madness?  When did you first recognize that all was not well with him?  Can religious belief become absurd, and do you see evidence of Eder’s contention above in the book?  And, can religious faith not only descend into absurdity, but even madness? 
—– 
3) Eder also goes on to state, “Clinging to his faith, Jacob disputes it as well. Here is one of his tortured arguments with himself:

” ‘It’s not right,’ you say.
“Who are you angry with?
“Not God
“No? Who else is there? Is this the devil’s work?
“It must be, you think, but uncertainly.”

Eder concludes with, “It is the problem of belief: how to reconcile God with evil. O’Nan carries it further. In Jacob he has the believer, torn. He has God, as well: struggling in despair with the same problem.” 
I know that a book discussion forum is too limiting a place for a full expose on the problem of God and evil, but what does O’Nan say about this problem in A Prayer for the Dying?  
—–
4) Patrick McGrath in his review in the NY Times reminds us of O’Nan’s use of the second person singular and present tense in his writing:  

O’Nan has employed a surprising but ultimately successful narrative technique for Jacob’s story: it is told throughout in the second-person singular and the present tense. Thus Jacob’s references to himself as ”you” have a self-distancing effect; it is as if he doesn’t fully occupy his own being and observes himself from some other place. He is both in his own experience and outside of it. This is a fine perspective for a narrator who will be forced to move from the orderly, predictable contentment of his life in a placid 19th-century farm town to confront the appalling prospect of chaos and destruction as the people around him sicken and die and the brush fires advance ever closer.

Stewart O’Nan once said 

“I mean, I could’ve written, I think, Prayer for the Dying, in first person but it probably wouldn’t work nearly as well. This particular character has this overdeveloped sort of superego and it’s always sort of accusing him. No matter how well he’s doing it’s always sort of saying, “You’re screwing up, you’re screwing up, even though he wants to be this perfect, blameless person, so it fits him perfectly.”

In another interview, O’Nan says:

For A Prayer I needed an intimate narrator capable of fairly hiding things from the reader. So I knew it had to be a first- or second-person, because a third- who’s unreliable is kind of cheating. I tried the first, and it was too close. I was reading Robert O’Connor’s Buffalo Soldiers, written in the second person, and noticed how the voice scourged its owner, tapping him on the shoulder whenever he’s doing wrong, like a conscience or superego. It’s the same use of the second as in Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights Big City, or Charles Johnson’s story “Moving Pictures.” And I thought: what effect would that scourging, nagging, blaming voice have if it were inside a man doing everything he could to prevent a terrible, unavoidable catastrophe? Especially a man who loves his town and feels responsible for everything and everyone. And as I wrote further into the story, I noticed that the voice would veer close to Jacob and then stand apart from him, accusing, and that it worked to highlight that gothic split in him of the strange and troubled private side and the solid and responsible public side. The hidden vs. the seen. And it also works as that ceaseless voice in the head of a mad person, the voice that won’t leave him alone.

Did you find this narrative technique to be successful or off-putting?  Did it take a while for you to settle into the book because of O’Nan’s style here? Cite specific examples and avoid personal opinions.
—–  
5)  Mark Winegardner, writing for Barnes and Noble, says:

When I finished Stewart O’Nan’s A Prayer for the Dying . . . I called him. I told him how jealous I was that he’d been able to write such a large-vision book in such a svelte (190-page) package. Flannery O’Connor was right: A good man is hard to find, when what’s meant by “good” is moral and not civil, when it refers to something larger than likability. What O’Nan does in this book — create a convincingly good man and put him in the middle of his story — is among the toughest acts a novelist can perform.

Given some of his actions in the story, Is Jacob Hanson a good man?  Is he a moral man?  Does Hanson believe, as one reviewer has stated, ”that the calamity is all his fault.”  Is it even possible to be a good man in a time of madness.
—–


6) O’Nan says that the one question underlying all of his work is “When do you give up?” Which, he concedes, “is a horrible question to ask, but it’s a question that a lot of people have to face.” Then, echoing Hamlet’s famous soliloquy on the subject, he adds, “That’s the question.” 
Do you see this question reflected in A Prayer for the Dying?  Is this question “the question?” 
O’Nan also once stated, ”I am primarily a realist and hope to show great empathy for my people without softening the difficult situations they find themselves in-yet my work inevitably veers into the cruel and the sentimental…It is extreme fiction masquerading behind the guise of mainstream realism. I hope it is generous, or, as Cheever said, ‘humane.’” 
Is A Prayer for the Dying a humane book despite its extremes? 
—–  
7) On the last page of the novel Jacob thinks:

“The whole idea of penance is selfish, misguided. You can’t bargain with God, buy Him with pieties. This is what you’ve found out – that even with the best intentions, even with all of your thoughtful sermons and deep feelings and good works, you can’t save anyone, least of all yourself. And yet it’s not defeat. After everything, you may still be saved. Your mother was wrong; it’s not up to you. It’s always been His decision.”

Ultimately, what does this book say about Divine providence?  Do you agree with Hanson’s statements?

DEAD FATHERS CLUB TEST

Answer question #11 from the discussion questions with a thorough essay answer.

Dead Father's Club

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. During the course of his narrative, Philip Noble, commits a series of crimes that grow increasingly serious. Despite his criminal behavior, does he continue to move the sympathies of the reader? By what means does he do so?


2. Leah confides to Philip that she hates God. By contrast, her father, Mr. Fairview, has turned enthusiastically toward religion after the death of his wife. What commentary does The Dead Fathers Club offer regarding religion, and how does religion influence events and relationships in the novel?


3. 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.


4. 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?


5. How might Philip’s mental disturbances be influenced by matters relating to sexuality, for example, his recent circumcision, his attraction toward his mother, and his ambivalent feelings about Leah?


6. Many of 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 reread the scenes involving that character’s counterpart in Hamlet. How has Haig altered the character? What do you think of these changes?


7. Philip takes a surprising interest in Roman history, especially in the reign of Nero. How does this interest relate to Philip’s overall mental state, and how is it woven into the novel’s plot?


8. Philip, who occasionally alludes to the wealth of the Fairview family and comments that “clever schools did Rugby and thick schools did Football,” is aware of the social and intellectual class system that surrounds him. To what extent is Haig’s novel shaped by issues of class?


9. 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, or as something else? Why does Philip trust him for so long?


10. Philip grossly misjudges the people around him and, because he tells the story, we view these people only from his misguided perspective. Nevertheless, by some miracle of narration, we are able to see them more or less as they are: as somewhat limited but basically well-meaning human beings. How does Haig manage both to immerse us in Philip’s point of view and give us an objective understanding of his other characters?


11. In a famous essay, T. S. Eliot complained that Hamlet was artistically flawed because the hero’s emotions were in excess of the factual situation in which he found himself. Does Haig’s retelling of the story give Philip sufficient motives for his extreme conduct? Do you find Philip believable as a character? Why or why not?

Prayer for the Dying questions

READING GROUP GUIDE

A Prayer for the Dying
A Novel
by Stewart O’Nan
ISBN-10: 0-312-42891-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-42891-4
About this Guide
The following author biography and list of questions about A Prayer for the Dying are intended as resources to aid individual readers and book groups who would like to learn more about the author and this book. We hope that this guide will provide you a starting place for discussion, and suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might approach A Prayer for the Dying.
About the Book
Set in Friendship, Wisconsin, just after the Civil War, A Prayer for the Dying tells of a horrible epidemic that is suddenly and gruesomely killing the town's residents and setting off a terrifying paranoia. Jacob Hansen, Friendship's sheriff, undertaker, and pastor, is soon overwhelmed by the fear and anguish around him, and his sanity begins to fray. Dark, poetic, and chilling, A Prayer for the Dying examines the effect of madness and violence on the morality of a once-decent man.
About the Author
Stewart O’Nan’s novels include Last Night at the Lobster, The Night Country, and A Prayer for the Dying. He is also the author of the nonfiction books The Circus Fire and, with Stephen King, the bestselling Faithful. Granta named him one of the Twenty Best Young American Novelists. He lives in Connecticut.

Discussion Questions
1. The book is narrated in the second person, addressing the main character, Jacob, as “you.” Who is speaking? Why do you think the author chose this mode to tell the story?
2. When Jacob is called to take care of Clytie, he has a very hard time pulling the trigger. Look at the passage (p. 49) in which he has to convince himself to kill her. Why does he agonize when he knows it’s the right thing? What does it mean that he’s “still clinging to some dream of innocence, blamelessness”? Does he continue to cling to that dream later in the story?
3. Why does Jacob elect to bleed and treat the bodies of some victims, even after Doc has told him not to, and even though he knows he’s putting himself in danger? Why is precision and diligence so important to him even when everyone around him is worried only about survival?
4. What role does religious faith play in the story? How does it influence Jacob, Chase, and other citizens of Friendship? Is their faith rewarded?
5. Jacob is a veteran of the Civil War. How does his experience there affect the way he behaves in the crisis in Friendship? How did the war change him?
6. How would you describe the relationship between Jacob and Doc? How do their different ideas about the world lead to different strategies for handling the outbreak in Friendship?
7. How does Jacob’s relationship with Marta affect his behavior in the outbreak? How do his priorities as a father and husband conflict with his responsibility to the town?
8. How do you interpret the book’s ending? What is Jacob choosing when he returns to Friendship? What do you imagine happening to him next?
9. Is Jacob sane at the end of the book? How does the author demonstrate the changes in his mind as conditions worsen?
10. “You’ve stopped believing in evil,” the narrator says of Jacob early in the story (p. 6). “Is that a sin?” Is there evil in this story? Does Jacob come to see it by the end?
11. How do the book’s two epigraphs relate to each other? Why do you think the author chose them?
12. Jacob is committed throughout the book to saving Friendship, and willing to sacrifice himself if necessary. Is he naïve? Does his commitment to principle do more harm than good in the end? Begin working on second person short stories.

Dead Fathers Club/Prayer for the Dying

AGENDA:

Test on Wednesday

Dead Fathers Club:
Read and discuss the following post:

http://bardfilm.blogspot.com/2015/03/book-note-dead-fathers-club.html

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7713667

https://prezi.com/qzdd-iqa2ddc/the-dead-fathers-club/

What other parallels did you find? Go over the discussion questions and post.


Prayer for the Dying:
Go over discussion questions and post!

Finish Prayer for Dying and Dead Father's Club

AGENDA:

Finish reading the selected novels for next Monday's class. Be sure to blog responses for questions 1-4 in previous post.

Work on Scholastic entries.

Work on short story assignments for the books:

Second person short story (minimum 4 pages double-spaced)--Prayer for the Dying
Modern adaptation based on an older plot (Shakespeare, Mythology, Greeks, Bible, etc.)--Dead Father's Club

A Prayer for the Dying

Here is a link to Michael Lesy's Wisconsin Death Trip  (an inspiration for O'Nan's novel).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Death_Trip

Scholastic/Readings

AGENDA:

Create an account with Scholastic.

http://www.artandwriting.org/

Select poems, short stories, essays, plays, etc. that you would like to submit and upload them.

Please respond to the blog post from the last class (only Mariangelis and Justice responded!)

Continue to work on writing projects and readings.

A Prayer for the Dying/Dead Father's Club

AGENDA:
THINK, PAIR, SHARE


Post responses to reading questions from your reading so far:

A Prayer for the Dying
1. The book is narrated in the second person, addressing the main character, Jacob, as “you.” Who is speaking? Why do you think the author chose this mode to tell the story?
2. When Jacob is called to take care of Clytie, he has a very hard time pulling the trigger. Look at the passage (p. 49) in which he has to convince himself to kill her. Why does he agonize when he knows it’s the right thing? What does it mean that he’s “still clinging to some dream of innocence, blamelessness”? Does he continue to cling to that dream later in the story?
3. Why does Jacob elect to bleed and treat the bodies of some victims, even after Doc has told him not to, and even though he knows he’s putting himself in danger? Why is precision and diligence so important to him even when everyone around him is worried only about survival?
4. What role does religious faith play in the story? How does it influence Jacob, Chase, and other citizens of Friendship? Is their faith rewarded?

DEAD FATHERS CLUB

1. During the course of his narrative, Philip Noble, commits a series of crimes that grow increasingly serious. Despite his criminal behavior, does he continue to move the sympathies of the reader? By what means does he do so?


2. Leah confides to Philip that she hates God. By contrast, her father, Mr. Fairview, has turned enthusiastically toward religion after the death of his wife. What commentary does The Dead Fathers Club offer regarding religion, and how does religion influence events and relationships in the novel?


3. 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.


4. 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?

Continue to work on finishing poetry cycles, new stories, Scholastic entries

Reading Assignments for Tuesday

A Prayer for the Dying:  Read to pg. 50

Dead Fathers' Club:  Read to pg. 70

New cover for A Prayer for the Dying

Check out Terrance Hayes' Poetry on poetry.org

American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin Terrance Hayes

But there never was a black male hysteria Breaking & entering wearing glee & sadness And the light grazing my teeth with my lighter To the night with the flame like a blade cutting Me slack along the corridors with doors of offices Orifices vomiting tears & fire with my two tongues Loose & shooing under a high-top of language In a layer of mischief so traumatized trauma Delighted me beneath the tremendous Stupendous horrendous undiscovered stars Burning where I didn’t know how to live My friends were all the wounded people The black girls who held their own hands Even the white boys who grew into assassins Terrance Hayes

Scholastic Deadline Dec. 7

A Prayer for the Dying Discussion questions

READING GROUP GUIDE

A Prayer for the Dying
A Novel
by Stewart O’Nan
ISBN-10: 0-312-42891-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-42891-4
About this Guide
The following author biography and list of questions about A Prayer for the Dying are intended as resources to aid individual readers and book groups who would like to learn more about the author and this book. We hope that this guide will provide you a starting place for discussion, and suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might approach A Prayer for the Dying.
About the Book
Set in Friendship, Wisconsin, just after the Civil War, A Prayer for the Dying tells of a horrible epidemic that is suddenly and gruesomely killing the town's residents and setting off a terrifying paranoia. Jacob Hansen, Friendship's sheriff, undertaker, and pastor, is soon overwhelmed by the fear and anguish around him, and his sanity begins to fray. Dark, poetic, and chilling, A Prayer for the Dying examines the effect of madness and violence on the morality of a once-decent man.
About the Author
Stewart O’Nan’s novels include Last Night at the Lobster, The Night Country, and A Prayer for the Dying. He is also the author of the nonfiction books The Circus Fire and, with Stephen King, the bestselling Faithful. Granta named him one of the Twenty Best Young American Novelists. He lives in Connecticut.

Discussion Questions
1. The book is narrated in the second person, addressing the main character, Jacob, as “you.” Who is speaking? Why do you think the author chose this mode to tell the story?
2. When Jacob is called to take care of Clytie, he has a very hard time pulling the trigger. Look at the passage (p. 49) in which he has to convince himself to kill her. Why does he agonize when he knows it’s the right thing? What does it mean that he’s “still clinging to some dream of innocence, blamelessness”? Does he continue to cling to that dream later in the story?
3. Why does Jacob elect to bleed and treat the bodies of some victims, even after Doc has told him not to, and even though he knows he’s putting himself in danger? Why is precision and diligence so important to him even when everyone around him is worried only about survival?
4. What role does religious faith play in the story? How does it influence Jacob, Chase, and other citizens of Friendship? Is their faith rewarded?
5. Jacob is a veteran of the Civil War. How does his experience there affect the way he behaves in the crisis in Friendship? How did the war change him?
6. How would you describe the relationship between Jacob and Doc? How do their different ideas about the world lead to different strategies for handling the outbreak in Friendship?
7. How does Jacob’s relationship with Marta affect his behavior in the outbreak? How do his priorities as a father and husband conflict with his responsibility to the town?
8. How do you interpret the book’s ending? What is Jacob choosing when he returns to Friendship? What do you imagine happening to him next?
9. Is Jacob sane at the end of the book? How does the author demonstrate the changes in his mind as conditions worsen?
10. “You’ve stopped believing in evil,” the narrator says of Jacob early in the story (p. 6). “Is that a sin?” Is there evil in this story? Does Jacob come to see it by the end?
11. How do the book’s two epigraphs relate to each other? Why do you think the author chose them?
12. Jacob is committed throughout the book to saving Friendship, and willing to sacrifice himself if necessary. Is he naïve? Does his commitment to principle do more harm than good in the end? Begin working on second person short stories.

CONTESTS:  Sokol, Gannon, and of course, Scholastic!

\

Matt Haig/Hamlet Summary

Go to Matt Haig website--check it out

video: 

 

http://www.matthaig.com/pressmediacoveragetdfcarticles.htm 

radio interview:   http://wamc.org/post/book-show-971

 

Plot Overview

On a dark winter night, a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. Discovered first by a pair of watchmen, then by the scholar Horatio, the ghost resembles the recently deceased King Hamlet, whose brother Claudius has inherited the throne and married the king’s widow, Queen Gertrude. When Horatio and the watchmen bring Prince Hamlet, the son of Gertrude and the dead king, to see the ghost, it speaks to him, declaring ominously that it is indeed his father’s spirit, and that he was murdered by none other than Claudius. Ordering Hamlet to seek revenge on the man who usurped his throne and married his wife, the ghost disappears with the dawn.

Prince Hamlet devotes himself to avenging his father’s death, but, because he is contemplative and thoughtful by nature, he delays, entering into a deep melancholy and even apparent madness. Claudius and Gertrude worry about the prince’s erratic behavior and attempt to discover its cause. They employ a pair of Hamlet’s friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to watch him. When Polonius, the pompous Lord Chamberlain, suggests that Hamlet may be mad with love for his daughter, Ophelia, Claudius agrees to spy on Hamlet in conversation with the girl. But though Hamlet certainly seems mad, he does not seem to love Ophelia: he orders her to enter a nunnery and declares that he wishes to ban marriages.
A group of traveling actors comes to Elsinore, and Hamlet seizes upon an idea to test his uncle’s guilt. He will have the players perform a scene closely resembling the sequence by which Hamlet imagines his uncle to have murdered his father, so that if Claudius is guilty, he will surely react. When the moment of the murder arrives in the theater, Claudius leaps up and leaves the room. Hamlet and Horatio agree that this proves his guilt. Hamlet goes to kill Claudius but finds him praying. Since he believes that killing Claudius while in prayer would send Claudius’s soul to heaven, Hamlet considers that it would be an inadequate revenge and decides to wait. Claudius, now frightened of Hamlet’s madness and fearing for his own safety, orders that Hamlet be sent to England at once.
Hamlet goes to confront his mother, in whose bedchamber Polonius has hidden behind a tapestry. Hearing a noise from behind the tapestry, Hamlet believes the king is hiding there. He draws his sword and stabs through the fabric, killing Polonius. For this crime, he is immediately dispatched to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. However, Claudius’s plan for Hamlet includes more than banishment, as he has given Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sealed orders for the King of England demanding that Hamlet be put to death.
In the aftermath of her father’s death, Ophelia goes mad with grief and drowns in the river. Polonius’s son, Laertes, who has been staying in France, returns to Denmark in a rage. Claudius convinces him that Hamlet is to blame for his father’s and sister’s deaths. When Horatio and the king receive letters from Hamlet indicating that the prince has returned to Denmark after pirates attacked his ship en route to England, Claudius concocts a plan to use Laertes’ desire for revenge to secure Hamlet’s death. Laertes will fence with Hamlet in innocent sport, but Claudius will poison Laertes’ blade so that if he draws blood, Hamlet will die. As a backup plan, the king decides to poison a goblet, which he will give Hamlet to drink should Hamlet score the first or second hits of the match. Hamlet returns to the vicinity of Elsinore just as Ophelia’s funeral is taking place. Stricken with grief, he attacks Laertes and declares that he had in fact always loved Ophelia. Back at the castle, he tells Horatio that he believes one must be prepared to die, since death can come at any moment. A foolish courtier named Osric arrives on Claudius’s orders to arrange the fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes.
The sword-fighting begins. Hamlet scores the first hit, but declines to drink from the king’s proffered goblet. Instead, Gertrude takes a drink from it and is swiftly killed by the poison. Laertes succeeds in wounding Hamlet, though Hamlet does not die of the poison immediately. First, Laertes is cut by his own sword’s blade, and, after revealing to Hamlet that Claudius is responsible for the queen’s death, he dies from the blade’s poison. Hamlet then stabs Claudius through with the poisoned sword and forces him to drink down the rest of the poisoned wine. Claudius dies, and Hamlet dies immediately after achieving his revenge.
At this moment, a Norwegian prince named Fortinbras, who has led an army to Denmark and attacked Poland earlier in the play, enters with ambassadors from England, who report that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Fortinbras is stunned by the gruesome sight of the entire royal family lying sprawled on the floor dead. He moves to take power of the kingdom. Horatio, fulfilling Hamlet’s last request, tells him Hamlet’s tragic story. Fortinbras orders that Hamlet be carried away in a manner befitting a fallen soldier.

DEAD FATHERS CLUB

Discussion of Dead Fathers Club:
What are some of the parallels to Hamlet?   What "postmodern" narrative techniques does Matt Haig employ?   Do they make the novel more interesting?  Post a response.

Also, look at the discussion questions listed below.  Discuss with a partner and then we will share out some thoughts.

Characters

• Phillip – The protagonist, Phillip, is assigned to the task of avenging his father’s murder by murdering his Uncle. He is an outsider at school and is picked on by Dominik Weekly and Jordan Harper.
• Brian Noble – Brian died before the novel starts. He comes back back to visit Phillip to get him to avenge his death to save him from the terrors. He fades in and out of the real world.
• Alan Peter Noble – Alan, the antagonist, has supposedly killed his brother, Brian, by dismatling his brakes on his car. According to Brian’s ghost, he is only out to steal Phillip’s mother and take the pub for himself.
• Carol Suzzane Noble – Mother of Phillip, Carol marries Alan and is unaware of the presence of Brian’s ghost. Phillip cares a lot for his mother, who is one of his only last sources of comfort.
• Leah Fairview – The former girlfriend of Phillip is sister to Dane Fairview. Her mother died when Leah was young and her father is accidentally murdered by Phillip. At the end of the novel, Phillip saves her from committing suicide
• Mrs. Fell – The teacher and counselor of Phillip, Mrs. Fell is a lovely woman who offers comfort to Phillip. Ray Goodwin, is in the Dead Father’s Club; it is unclear whether or not Mrs. Fell knows this.
• Mr. Fairview – He is a father and a widower. He is murdered accidentally by Phillip.
• Dane – He is the brother of Leah and a friend of Phillip’s that at times has protected Phillip from Dominick. However he nearly slits Phillip’s throat when Phillip confesses that he murdered Dane’s father.
• Terry – He works with Uncle Alan in his garage. He chokes Phillip on Halloween night, he also revives Leah with Uncle Alan.
• Dominick Weekly and Jordan Harper – They are bullies at Phillip’s school that torment and physically abuse Phillip.
• Nan – She is a minor character that is the mother of Phillip’s mother. She is disapproving of Carol’s precocious marriage to Alan.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. During the course of his narrative, Philip Noble, commits a series of crimes that grow increasingly serious. Despite his criminal behavior, does he continue to move the sympathies of the reader? By what means does he do so?


2. Leah confides to Philip that she hates God. By contrast, her father, Mr. Fairview, has turned enthusiastically toward religion after the death of his wife. What commentary does The Dead Fathers Club offer regarding religion, and how does religion influence events and relationships in the novel?


3. 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.


4. 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?


5. How might Philip’s mental disturbances be influenced by matters relating to sexuality, for example, his recent circumcision, his attraction toward his mother, and his ambivalent feelings about Leah?


6. Many of 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 reread the scenes involving that character’s counterpart in Hamlet. How has Haig altered the character? What do you think of these changes?


7. Philip takes a surprising interest in Roman history, especially in the reign of Nero. How does this interest relate to Philip’s overall mental state, and how is it woven into the novel’s plot?


8. Philip, who occasionally alludes to the wealth of the Fairview family and comments that “clever schools did Rugby and thick schools did Football,” is aware of the social and intellectual class system that surrounds him. To what extent is Haig’s novel shaped by issues of class?


9. 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, or as something else? Why does Philip trust him for so long?


10. Philip grossly misjudges the people around him and, because he tells the story, we view these people only from his misguided perspective. Nevertheless, by some miracle of narration, we are able to see them more or less as they are: as somewhat limited but basically well-meaning human beings. How does Haig manage both to immerse us in Philip’s point of view and give us an objective understanding of his other characters?


11. In a famous essay, T. S. Eliot complained that Hamlet was artistically flawed because the hero’s emotions were in excess of the factual situation in which he found himself. Does Haig’s retelling of the story give Philip sufficient motives for his extreme conduct? Do you find Philip believable as a character? Why or why not?

WRITING IN 2ND PERSON

Gamzon Short Story in 2nd person

Marcy Gamzon


797 Washington Avenue


Rochester, New York 14617


585-544-7245


mlgamz@aol.com


Red Rocks, Green Grapefruits


You are somewhere inside your head in a space without walls, a space nevertheless confining because you are confused about how you got there and feel trapped. It is a place where you seem to be searching for a memory or perhaps a dream. Whatever it is, it wants your attention, demands it, requires it. At first it appears as a vague outline consisting of misty filaments refusing to take definitive shape. Perhaps it is only an idea then, not really a memory or dream returning. And just as quickly as it has emerged, luring you with the tantalizing possibility of its actually being realized, it dissolves or rather dissipates. Dissolves… dissipates… which word best captures how it seems to vanish within this place inside your head? No matter, it is gone.


What was it I was thinking, you ask yourself. What did it want from me?


Try to remember. Make it return. Go back to the place.


The outline begins to take form again; the filaments become a whole landscape. You begin to see a red rock desert with imposing mesas stretching across the horizon and the blue bowl of sky above it. It is a memory that begins somewhere in the American Southwest--Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona perhaps? Good, here is a start.


Now the filaments swirl into the shape of citrus trees--lemons, oranges and grapefruits—planted in a recently watered garden in a gated community with small stucco houses, one after another, all with adobe red tile roofs, and lawns made of landscape rocks instead of grass. A retirement “city” for seniors. And the people who live there are old, some very old, some not. In the backyards are citrus trees with shiny green leaves--lemon, orange and grapefruit trees emerging from cream and pink pebbled lawns, and this here is the house with its garden of citrus trees where you live now.


And then I told them not to pick the grapefruits outside. I said, They’re still green.


Green grapefruits. They had wanted to pick the grapefruits during their visit that winter. They had never picked citrus fruit from a backyard tree before. But the fruit was not yet ripe.


And then they said, So this is Arizona. Red rocks and green grapefruits.


And they left laughing to catch a flight back East laughed and it was a long time before they came to visit again. The girl and her friend. No, not the girl. You know the girl is not a girl anymore. You know she is a grown woman now, but for you she will always be the girl with dark brown hair and wavy curls that you would brush away from her face. She was your first, not like the second or the third. Your first child—the independent “me-do” girl. It is comforting to remember her as a child, even though you know she is a grown woman whose hair is starting to turn grey.


You told them to go up to Sedona, the girl and her friend, to see the red rocks because that was something to do and they wanted to do some sight-seeing. They thought a day trip might be nice. So you told them about Sedona, and they hiked up Cathedral Rock and when they returned, they said they had discovered a power vortex. They believed in all those “New Age” Age” stories people told about Sedona.


Whatever makes you happy, you said, trying to please.


The first year you moved here you drove with him to Wickenburg, then to Prescott, and finally Sedona because the neighbors kept saying that you must see the red rocks of Sedona. This was after he had the bypass surgery and was still trying to recover. The surgery had aged him ten years, and he was not the same, would never be the same. From the car you could see the red rocks in the distance. Pretty, you said, as you pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant. Let’s have lunch and go home, he said. I’m tired.






Go back to the other place now. There is something pulling at you, something you must remember if only you can stay there longer and let the outline of what it is return. Perhaps you should open your eyes and look at the notepad on the night table next to the bed you lie in. Perhaps you wrote it down last night before you went to bed. Perhaps there is a clue. But you know you did not write it down. It is something you cannot forget--and now you’ve forgotten what it is. Go back to the place and don’t be afraid. Eventually something will form, the outline will take shape and you will be able to make sense of it all.


In the place a fountain forms. Or is it a memorial? No, not a fountain. A large stone, a plaque with six blue lamps growing up from the white stone below. Yes, you tell yourself, it’s a memorial. That’s what it is. And there is something about a butterfly. A yellow butterfly. Did you see it when you were there? The yellow butterfly?


No, not in this place. Somewhere else. Long ago when you were young and there were butterflies-- hundreds of them—everywhere. In the fields. Yellow like the sun. There was sun, dandelions, and the butterflies. Yellow. So bright. It was all so bright—and pretty.


But you’re wrong. There was only one butterfly, the last butterfly. And then no more butterflies, no more light, only darkness, so much darkness.


The place is empty again. Whatever it was that wanted you needed to remember is no longer there. And there is this emptiness and it hurts. The hurt is like a pebble in a shoe, a hurt that must be removed before one can go any further. Just a pebble.


Now you remember--there were pebbles in the place with the fountain that wasn’t a really a fountain but was a memorial to the dead. And you remind yourself that it is tradition to place pebbles on a grave when you visit. Always, Papa said. To let the dead know that you were there, although some from the old country still believe it will keep them from returning to haunt us and there may be some truth in that.


And there is this emptiness and it hurts.


And there were pebbles at the base of the fountain that was really a memorial and took some and placed them elsewhere on the plaque in the ground ten feet away. Such a small pile of pebbles. No flowers, flowers wilt and die, but little stones survive. So there were pebbles to mark this visit. Pebbles to remember. Pebbles to survive.


The girl, the daughter said, When I got home I went out into my garden and he was there. I know it sounds crazy, but I could feel him there. And suddenly a butterfly appeared and kept swirling around me. It was not a monarch butterfly or like anything I had ever seen in the garden or even a conservatory. It was all black except for some white spots and these brilliant blue spots on the back of its wings. And it kept circling around me, and I knew it was him saying goodbye, departing the earth, as they say, his soul in the form of a butterfly. But he was making one last visit to me to say goodbye. And I’ve never seen a black swallowtail in my garden again.


Black swallowtail. That is the name she gave for the black butterfly with the brilliant blue spots on its wings. But it was not like the yellow ones swirling in the fields that you are remembered this morning. Hundreds and hundreds of yellow butterflies swirling in the fields. Hundreds of souls leaving the earth. And then there was only one and then it was gone and then the darkness came. You remember that butterflies are symbols for the soul. The Greek word for butterfly is psyche or soul. In the old country so very long ago, the world that was filled with the yellow butterflies, Papa showed you a picture book. In your mind’s eye, you can still see beautiful Psyche, a woman with butterfly wings in love with the winged god Eros. But now you are remembering another word for “butterfly”. The language of youth returns. In Russian a “butterfly” is “baboshka”—a grandmother, old woman. So now you, too, have become a butterfly, a babushka—an old woman.


You can leave the place if you want to. Only lately you want stay longer each time. You are actually beginning to enjoy being here, searching for what it is that has lured you into the place—whatever dream or memory appears dimly at first, the mere outline of something that once was, not anything that really is. And you welcome the voices, too, voices that you have lived with most of your life and are beginning to fade. How can you hold on to them?


You can hear him now--that gruff, deep, reassuring voice. So what are our plans for the day? He asks this of you now, just the way he always did, every morning you have been here.


You turn over in bed to answer him, but there is no one there and you are frightened once again because there is so much emptiness here, next to you, not just inside your head where there is a place for dreams and memories and voices that aren’t really there. So you turn back, try to sit up, and reach for the metal walker next to the bed. If you concentrate enough, you can swing one leg over the side of the bed and try to get up. It’s time to get up, time to leave the place.


Yes, it hurts to get out of the bed. Your right knee is now just bone on bone. Yesterday you drove to the store and went through the stop sign at the corner of the street because you could not bring your foot off the accelerator pedal to brake in time. Soon you will have to stop driving altogether, sell the car and ask for rides. Or just stay inside, lie down and retreat to the place more than you really need or want to.


You manage to pull yourself up and stand. You place each swollen foot into the light blue slippers that do not hurt your feet. Gripping the metal walker you move slowly, deliberately from the bedroom to the living room. The air conditioner hums quietly.


Butterfly…babushka…old woman.


Outside it will be hot—maybe more than 100 degrees. Arizona gets like that in the summer. Better to stay inside. Arizona is hot, very hot, and yes, the girl and her friend were right. Arizona is red rocks and green grapefruits. You smile at the silliness of the thought and move to the patio window, draw back the curtains and look outside at the backyard with its citrus trees. A family of quail dart past busily searching for something to peck at amidst the pebbled backyards of the houses. Where is the grass? No grass, only pebbles and citrus trees. Arizona is red rocks and green grapefruits. Saying it again makes you laugh to yourself.


When he came home in the evening from work in the city, you would give him half a grapefruit before the main meal, a half grapefruit carefully cut around the edges, each half slice separated from the center so he could easily spoon it out. You used a special knife for that, the double-bladed one made especially for cutting grapefruit. You brought it here, for his grapefruits, to cut them the way you always did.


That first year, he discovered that they grew on trees right in the backyard. Green grapefruits that ripened into yellow, thick-skinned fruit so much sweeter than those you bought in the stores. He was so happy to have fruit he could pick in the morning, and he would place them in a bowl on the table. Sometimes he would have one for breakfast or lunch in the long days that followed the move out West after the retirement and the bankruptcy.


Today it will be one year and you will go and place pebbles on the plaque that marks where he rests. Next to it is another plaque, still only a marker with your name and birth date engraved on it. When you both moved here, you sold your jewelry and purchased these spaces side by. After all, what did you need all that jewelry for now? Such a deal! Two for the price of one! In life and in planning for death, he was always looking for a deal or gambling away what little you had


So what are our plans for the day? His last words. This is what you had to remember.


Enough. Tonight you will light a yahrzeit candle to remember him by. Soon you will join him not only in the place inside your head, but there in the quiet place across from the fountain as well.


No, not a fountain. A memorial to those who vanished, six million of them, but there are so many more. You will join them as well—the butterflies.


You remember butterflies, so many butterflies, so many souls.


Butterfly, babushka, old woman-- soul.


Marcy Gamzon currently teaches creative writing and AP English at School of the Arts where she has taught for 25 years. She received a BFA in Drama/Directing from Carnegie-Mellon University and an MA in English Literature from the University of Rochester. She is a Teacher Consultant and Fellow of the Genesee Valley Writing Project which she joined in 2007. A former Actors Equity stage manager, she has worked professionally for GeVa Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre and the Carolina Regional Theatre. Her directing credits include several community theatre productions for Blackfriars, Rochester Shakespeare Players, JCC, Shipping Dock Theatre, and the University of Rochester Summer Theatre (URST). In 2003, she received the Writers and Books "Teacher of Writing for Young Students" award for her work with students at SOTA.

Poetry cycles

AGENDA:

WRITING:  Continue to work on your poetry cycles due Friday!

Poetry cycle by Anna Akhmatova--"Requiem"
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/requiem/

https://letterpile.com/writing/Understanding-Anna-Akhmatovas-Poem-Requiem

Poetry cycles/ End of marking period

AGENDA:

WRITING:  Continue to work on poetry cycles:



Similar to Thomas and Beulah, consider some characters in your own life, imagined characters, or actual historical characters. Imagine the significant chronological dates in their lilves--high points and low points. consider how to construct a series of 8-10 (preferably more) poems that tell a story (narrative poetry) and explore these key moments and occasions.

• a. Your poetry cycle should consist of 8-10 poems
• b. Your poetry cycle should be accompanied by a chronology to support the key dates and occasions you chose to write about.
• c. At least two of the poems should explore the same event from two different perspectives or viewpoints (like "Courtship" in Thomas and Beulah). These poems can have the same title.
• d. Place one poem per page, single-spaced, 12 point type in a clean font and be sure to title each poem. you may want to title the entire cycle as well. Use italics for dialogue, songs, memories, etc as you observe in Rita Dove's work. Experiment with different stanzaic forms and poetic styles.
• e. Poems can, of course, be narrative or lyric, but remember that the overall cycle is a narrative and must tell a story of a life or lives although we only see "fragments" or moments/snapshots of those lives.

READING:

What is poetry?
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-poetry-852737

https://www.shmoop.com/poetry/how-to-read-poem/what-is-poetry.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fKCOb8qGQE

Everything you need to know about writing poetry (TED TALK):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0BUYzMypi8



Putting together a poetry manuscript:
www.thoughtco.com/putting-together-a-poetry-manuscript-2725619

Readers Theater tonight at 7 pm!  Extra credit--see you there...

THOMAS AND BEULAH test

AGENDA:

Period 1: Test on Thomas and Beulah

Period 2: Contnue to work on poetry cycles

Thomas and Beulah--Canary in Bloom

AGENDA:

Morning reflection: Andrea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YkrojbbwiA

Continue viewing Thomas and Beulah---ESSAY TEST ON MONDAY (Go over handout!)

WRITING: Work on poetry cycles

Contest entries today! Bennington and Nancy Thorp

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection by Kaneil:
Cry Reads: I'm a 911 Operator

Submit to Bennington and Nancy Thorp TODAY!

https://www.hollins.edu/academics/majors-minors/english-creative-writing-major/nancy-thorp-poetry-contest/

More Thomas and Beulah

Work on poetry cycles

Poetry Cycle--Conspirator's Daughter

The Conspirator’s Daughter:

A poetry cycle about Anna  Surratt, daughter of Mary Surratt who was hanged with three others as part of the “Lincoln conspiracy”

Epigraph

She was an only daughter, and had lived with her mother, who was a widow.

 Poor Anna! I can never forget her look, or the sound of that restless footstep in the room above me. The two haunt me yet, and will until my dying day. It matters little to that poor mourner, that the whole trial has been declared by authority unconstitutional and illegal. That does not bring back the dead, nor lessen the grief of the survivor, nor can it blot out the shame and disgrace which will forever attach itself to the nation, which suffered such flagrant abuse of power to pass unnoticed and unrebuked.  –Virginia Lomax

A Five-turn Knot

            I really did not think Mrs. Surratt would be swung from the end of it, but she was, and it was                demonstrated to my          satisfaction, at least, that a five-turn knot will perform as                successful a job as a           seven-turn knot.—Colonel (Captain) Christian Rath

Upstairs in his room at the penitentiary,

the hangman prepared

four nooses for the executions,

carefully measuring out the lengths

of Boston hemp brought in

from the Navy Yard,

cutting and saving one last length of rope

for mother-- just in case--still praying

he would not need it the next day.

Three seven-turn knots

for three of the condemned.

Three regulation hangman knots

neatly wound military style.

The captain slighted the fourth

coiling only five turns.

A shoddy job, he must have thought,

or perhaps his heart was not in it

or  he was tired

and placed it aside.

The ropes still needed testing, though.

He tied each noose to a tree limb

and a bag of buckshot,

then tossed the bag to the ground.

The ropes performed successfully

as they would the next day.

Stretched taut, the ropes held

All four lifeless bodies slowly swinging

in the sweltering heat of a July afternoon--

the coiled knot of the noose

underneath four white hoods

tight against each left ear.

Morning, Noon, and Night

               I found this in the back room of the first floor of Mrs. Surratt’s house. The back part was all                sealed, and my     curiosity               was excited by noticing a piece torn off the back. I opened the back and        found the likeness of J.       Wilkes Booth,       with the word “Booth” written in pencil on the back of it.—   Lieutenant John W. Dempsey,          May 19, testimony for the prosecution

Louis Weichmann tried to kiss me and gave me presents.

One was a carte-de-visite of an elderly man sitting in a chair,

one arm around his grandson’s shoulders,

the other holding the young lad’s hand.

The old man’s eyes gaze down at his granddaughter

who is seated on the ground, a finger raised to her lips,

perhaps rebuking the playful dog sitting at her feet. 

The picture is titled Morning, Noon, and Night.

Leaning against the old man’s chair is the mother,

her head tilted to one side, looking wistfully at the camera.

She reminded me of mother, so I placed it on the mantel

in the back room of our boardinghouse on H street.

One day, Honora Fitzpatrick and I went to a daguerrean gallery

to have her picture taken.  Much to our delight and surprise,

we saw some pictures of  the actor, my brother’s new friend--

Mr. Booth. We bought two photographs of him.

But when Johnnie saw the photographs he was angry

and told me to tear them up, throw them in the fire,

or he would take them from me.  So I hid them behind

the sentimental lithograph Louis Weichmann had given me.

And this was the proof they used against mother.

Source:

(That picture belonged to me; it was given to me by that man Weichman, and I put a photograph of John Wilkes Booth behind it. I went with Miss Honora Fitzpatrick to a daguerrean gallery one day to get her picture; we saw some photographs of Mr. Booth there, and, being acquainted with him, we bought two and took them home. When my brother saw them, he told me to tear them up and throw them in the fire, and that, if I did not, he would take them from me. So I hid them. I owned photographs of Davis, Stephens, Beauregard, Stonewall Jackson, and perhaps a few other leaders of the rebellion. My father gave them to me before his death, and I prize them on his account, if on nobody else’s. I also had in the house photographs of Union Generals—of General McClellan, General Grant, and General Joe Hooker.)

Anna E. Surratt, testimony for the defense, May 30, 1865.

A Pallet, A Pillow and a Prayer

               “Don’t forget to send the pillow upon which her head rested and her prayer beads, if you can find         them--these things are      dear to me.”—Anna Surratt, letter  to General Hartranft, July 9, 1865

The Washington Arsenal  was reopened

to hold the prisoners and conduct the trial.

Mother’s cell was 3 ½ feet wide, 7 feet long,

 7 feet high with a straw-filled pallet

for sleeping on the cold floor.  A metal bucket

rested in one corner of the cell, reeking,

waiting to be emptied by the young guards

who snickered about  the womanly red flow

that plagued mother  and made her ill.

A table and wash basin in the other.

Four times a day, the prisoners were fed:

soft bread, salt pork or soup, coffee or water.

Mother would not eat at first until finally

Her hunger was unendurable.

We prayed into the night. Then I watched her rest

her head upon the pillow on her wretched pallet.

What dreams she had—I can only imagine—

I know my own.

Sources:

Prison cells in the female ward (these cells were twice as large as the men’s cells) were cleared and inspected.  Shuck mattresses were delivered to the cells and nails were taken out of the walls to ensure that the prisoners would not harm themselves or possibly others.

The prisoners’ meals usually consisted of coffee or tea, bread and salted meat.  After finishing their meal, the bowl in which their beverage was served was removed.  No other items would be brought in to the cell.

Each cell measured 7′ by 3 ½′ by 7′ with solid masonry walls eighteen inches thick. Their iron doors opened alternately to the north and south to prevent the prisoners from communicating with each other.