1.   Explain the narrator’s references to war.  How does the war still touch veterans’ lives even though it is over?  How is war hurtful?  How is war useful?  Notice the narrator benefiting from legacies of war, for example, acknowledging the advantage of his speech defect (“people don’t realize that a stammerer has more time to deal with awkward questions” (4–5) and preaching in Barton Ferry “(with Passchendaele in mind)” (59).  How do Birkin and Moon talk about war differently at the beginning of the story and toward the end?  Consider Moon’s introductory explanation of his tent interior: “I developed a great affection for holes” (18) and his much later affirmative response to Birkin’s “‘Do you think about it often?’”: “‘Particularly at night; that’s the bad time.  Your window’s open; you must have heard me’” (66).

2.   Reverend Keach’s initial appearance is none too flattering: “Like a tracker-dog he looked along their [Birkin’s wet footprints] trail to the foot of the ladder and then up it” (4).  Do you think this first uncomfortable accusing presence improves once Birkin becomes acquainted with his wife: “How did he get her?  Trap her?  Overwhelm her? […] Yet who knows—doubtless she saw more, much more in Keach than the rest of us.  Nothing’s so secret as what’s between man and wife” (65)?  At the two men’s last meeting, we have Keach taking over his description in a self-scrutinizing final speech (or impromptu sermon) which ends with “‘You too have no need for me […] And you have hoped that I shall go away’” (82).  Explore Keach’s character and Birkin’s perception of him at various stages in the story.

3.   Birkin frequently denies being an artist, calling himself “the labourer who cleans up after artists” (24) or comparing himself to a “bricklayer” (92).  Does this identification change?  What creativity does his profession involve?  Why does he make this remark about Keach: “Great God, the vast creative process was hidden from him” (80)?

4.   Consider Birkin’s description of medieval identity: “Our idea of personal fame was alien to them.  This man of mine, for instance, knew nothing of earlier artists, so why should he suppose anyone would want to know anything of him?  So it wouldn’t even occur to him to sign his work” (63).  How does this anonymity compare to this sense of self: “Here I was, face to face with a nameless painter reaching from the dark to show me what he could do, saying to me as clear as any words, ‘If any part of me survives from time’s corruption, let it be this.  For this was the sort of man I was’” (22–23)?  What is “this” that can be preserved and survives the passage of time?  How would you characterize such authorship?  What aspects of a person can archeology not uncover?

5.   What is Oxgodby to the narrator?  Consider passages where Birkin describes the town or evaluates its effect on him such as those on pp.13, 21, 46, 82, and especially 56 and 70–71.

6.   Toward the end, Birkin asks Mossop who joins the Sunday-school Treat, “What are you doing here? […] You’re Church” (69).  This is astonishingly preposterous coming from one who “became an unbeliever when [he] was eighteen” (46).  What, in fact, is the narrator doing there as well?

7.   What does the digging of Piers’ grave reveal about the body inside and about Moon?  Why does watching his friend in action make the narrator say he “was seeing Moon for the first time” (84)?

8.   Why does Moon remove the crescent before showing the remains to others?  Why does the narrator make no objection to this tampering when earlier he was “sounding hysterical and staring wildly” upon learning of Adelaide Hebron’s meddling with the mural (9) and voicing uneasiness about Moon’s taking money for something and doing another (17)?  Why is it appropriate that the painting, covered and uncovered, presides over all this?

9.   “They don’t want to know if you’re any good: just what you’ve published,” says Moon of academia, preparing for his final recovery (86).  If publication does not show quality, what does?

 

10. Here is an exercise in developing an argument that you can try.  The same skills apply to coming up with an idea for a reading response, an exam essay, or a class paper.  For this activity you can get into groups to study the text, brainstorm ideas, and develop a thesis.  Let’s take art as a topic.[1]

1).  First ask yourselves some progressively specific questions about art, such as how does art figure in the novel, that is, how is it portrayed, what is its function in the work, is it described in any consistent way?  How does it relate to other disciplines, themes or literary elements (business, religion, restoration, profession, looking and seeing, time, characters, setting)?  Is art a science?  How does Carr use characters’ perception of art as a measure of their quality?

2).  Next you’ll want to read closely passages or lines that reveal something about these relationships.  You might focus on this exchange between Mrs. Keach and Tom Birkin.

 “Mr Birkin…Mr Birkin…is it an oil-painting or a watercolour or what is it for goodness sake?”

“It’s all sorts of things, Mrs Keach.  Item—blew bysse at 4s 4d. the pound, item—one sack of verdigris at 12d. a pound, item—red ochre, 3 pounds a penny, item—3 pecks of wheat flour…I suppose you could lump it all as tempura.  And let’s not forget the wall itself—down in the sinful south, plastered with chalk bound with parish offerings of skimmed milk; up here, slaked-limestone putty damped just enough to stiffen.  That’s about what it is.”

“You’re making fun of me.  I’m not very stupid you know.  An aunt once gave me a paint-box for my birthday: I recall it had a marvelous slab of purple.”  And then that spurt of laughter like a bell.

“I’m not making fun, Mrs Keach.  Ask Mr Dowthwaite at the smithy—he understands having to make-do, flatten this, splay that, till it’s something not listed in the Ironmonger’s Catalogue. (45)

 

3).  Now, make a list of as many observations as you can about the language of this passage, grouping them into these preliminary categories:

a.      Evidence suggesting a link between art and other disciplines.

b.      Evidence suggesting a contradiction or conflict between the concerns or character of different disciplines.

c.      Things in the text that seem unrelated to art.

4).  With these observations in mind, reconsider your original questions in 1).  Reformulate your question in more specific terms.  Don’t feel bound to keep key terms or topics if your discussion and analysis lead you to a different concern.  At this point, you might shift focus from “art” to “artists,” for example, or from “disciplines” to “identity.”  A form of this question may eventually be useful in helping to structure and write your introduction.

5).  Now, re-examine your observations in 3) and begin to organize the meat of your argument.  Give special scrutiny to those items in list c. that seemed unrelated to art.  Sometimes these incongruities serve as a compelling way into the heart of the issue.  Start with an obvious statement but then tease out the implications of each detail in that statement.  Be thorough and creative.

6).  Now that you have demonstrated the connections as you see them, for a conclusion, do not merely agree or disagree with the initial rewritten question.  Instead, discuss the nuances raised by the question, or how the question was even wrong-headed in its formulation, or lay out the details of why the question is a good or bad one for you to have asked.  Here, you can link evidence from 5), which is the core of your argument and findings, to your final impressions of the issue and the text.

 

11. Thanks for an excellent course this semester!  It’s been great working with all of you.  We’d like to make the class better and would appreciate your suggestions.  Please give your feedback in the attached sheet and hand it in to the staff at the Department of English Office on or before Friday, October 8, 2010.