Thursday, November 6, 2003

Essay 2 due.

Reading

• William H. Gass, “The Doomed in Their Sinking” (Oates, 373–382)

Notes

1. We have already read an essay on suicide, William Hoagland’s “Heaven and Nature.” How does that essay compare to this one? Do they communicate similar or different ideas?
2. Gass drops names as if they were common nouns. Who are some of these people? What are they doing in this essay?
3. This essay is written in a very dense style. Is there a purpose to Gass’s method? Part of the answer may lie near his conclusion: “Poetry is cathartic only for the unserious, for in front of the rush of expressive need stands the barrier of form” (382). When he writes of catharsis (roughly, “release” or “purgation”) does he consider the multiple avenues of communication and interpretation available to us, or does poetry only generate private meaning, significant only to its author?
4. Consider this passage: “Nowadays the significance of a suicide for the suicide and the significance of the suicide for society are seldom the same. If, according to the social workers’ comforting cliché, they are often a cry for help, they’re just as frequently a vow of silence” (377). What does he mean by this pairing of public and private meaning, especially in the case of a suicide? Does this claim hold up with my earlier quotation (381)?

Some of these questions may seem a little dense themselves, not unlike Gass’s essay; but I think they will be useful to our discussion. Please come prepared to address them — but also come with questions of your own.