Department of English
Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University
Weekly 11
This is the second weekly for A Month in the Country.
2202234 Introduction to the Study of English Literature Semester I, 2010 Wednesday, August 25, 2010 Weekly
11 Life Hazards, Work Hazards 1. Birkin’s
phrase “for a time” punctuates the description of how his job
has created for him a nice reality inside the church and makes his
life outside in the town a dream (31).
What punctures this comfortable picture? 2. Read the
visit to Emily Clough (pp. 34–36) closely.
Why does Carr include it in the story?
How is the episode told?
What do you think of the way Kathy suggests the idea:
“Let’s call and see Emily Clough; she’s dying of
consumption…We can give her the cornflowers Edgar’s picked for
Mam”? How do Kathy
and Edgar treat Emily and her illness?
How does Emily herself handle dying?
What effect do Emily’s statements (such as “I’ve
heard about you,” “Who was there today?” and “I like your
straw hat, Kathy. Let
me try it on.”) have against her condition and her physical
description? What is
the point of the eye contact between Emily and Birkin at the end
of the passage? What
connection is there between this girl and this man? 3. Compare the
three house visits given in quick succession: Sunday dinner with
the Ellerbecks, visiting Emily Clough, and calling at the Keaches’
vicarage. How is the
narrator greeted at each? What
tone does he use in describing the interior and what takes place
there? How does he
portray himself while there? 4. Consider
the affinity between work and art.
Mr. Ellerbeck’s carving at Sunday dinner is described as
an artwork, and he an artist, having learned from his father the
butcher (32). Later,
the narrator admires the “magnificence” of Aunt Rose’s
oil-lamp whose mundane utilitarian function does not preclude its
being the “chieftest glory” in the room (33).
Are there similar mergings of usefulness and aesthetics, of
profession and passion, or of necessity and adornment elsewhere? 5. Approaching
Reverend Keach’s house, Tom Birkin calls the surroundings a
garden, making it sound even Edenic (36).
Once at the house, how does he portray the building and its
effect on him and on the Keaches? 6. What link
does Birkin reach for in sympathizing with Alice Keach as she
recounts her horrifying nightmare (38)?
Notice the telling of each experience.
How is the language and/or tone in “the house had become
a compression chamber” (37), for example, different from “a
really big shell exploded” (38)?
What means, literary and psychologically, does Birkin use
in verbalizing his war and post-war experience?
What strategy gives him the wherewithal to cope with
“black depression” by saying that being homeless saves him
from it (39)? 7. “Almost
everything has some purpose” seems to be Birkin’s
philosophy. What is
the purpose of the giant cat appearing with “a fluttering
song-thrush clamped in its bloody jaws” (39)? 8. Consider
the rose Sarah van Fleet that “keeps on blooming” (40) and
that is featured on the cover of this novel in relation to Robert
Herrick’s famous call to “gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”
What other images are used to speak about time in the
story? Most of the time the narrator seems to want this summer “to
go on and on” (41), but when Kathy is let out of school, he
thinks her “for a month” is “far too long” (42).
How else is time viewed?
How is time a meaningful part of his profession? 9. How does
Carr convey Birkin’s healing? 10. Explore the contrast
between the country and the city. 11. In the acquaintance
game that Birkin and Moon have going where they each show off
their ability to read unknown individuals made intimate through
their work, what is revealed about “art and heart” (50) and
the connection between life and relic? 12. After Birkin’s revelation about the fate of the mural painter, Moon warns him, “Mind your own step, then” (64). What biblical resonance does this have, considering the content of the painting on which both men are working? Why does Alice Keach appear in the story immediately after this caution, asking “Do you believe in hell”?
|
Last updated August 31, 2010