Month: September 2006

Language

Work with two other students on this game.  You may use dictionaries.  Play “stink pink” with the following definitions.  Check with your teacher for correct answers.  How many of the words in the rhyming answers can be found in this story?  How many more stink pinks can be derived from words in this story?

Definitions:

  1. the coat of an animal that can be apprehended by touch (past tense)
  2. a large group who suffer from tedium
  3. a simian form
  4. one who is or thinks she/he is very good at something (slang)
  5. language used by water-dwelling, blood-sucking worms
  6. rather vulgar victuals
  7. a voyage by water in a boat
  8. a large swallow of some liquid
  9. a blind fury occasioned by being enclosed in a small, wire container

“The Tower” by Marghanita Laski (England)

There is the known world; that is, the world we think we know, the world we perceive with our senses. And then there is the unknown, a world conceived, if at all, only by the mind. In this gap between the reach of our senses and the reach of our mind, arise all of our dreams and all of our nightmares. Does my family tree, my unusual name, my singular appearance, my sudden attraction to, or repulsion from, this person, object, or place mean that I am singled out for some specific fate? “Yes,” say the writers of fantasy: H. G. Wells, “The Green Door,” C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. And “yes,” too, say many of the writers of horror.

“The Tower” is based on two of these sources of horror: the sense that some people are fated for certain experiences, and the sense that some people—in certain places—can pass through doorways into other worlds or, as here, into the domain of another power.

But Laski makes her story different by eschewing the usual roller coaster of horror and maintaining the possibility of normalcy right up to the final words. How many more steps are there? Is there any end to this ghastly descent? Who or what is waiting for Caroline?

Marghanita Laski, 1915 – 1988

In her home country of England, Marghanita Laski was well known as a journalist, broadcaster, critic, and author.  She wrote in many genres, and received praise both for her fiction and for her works of biographical criticism:  the latter including Jane Austen and Her World, George Eliot and Her World,  and more recently, From Palm to Pine:  Rudyard Kipling Abroad and At Home.  Her novels show her equally at home with fantasy and science fiction in Love on the Supertax;  social satire in Toasted English;  terror in The Victorian Chaise-Longue; and humour in The Village.  Her most critically acclaimed work, Little Boy Lost, set in France after World War II, was adapted to film by Paramount in 1953, and starred Bing Crosby as the father searching for his missing son.

Exploring the Text

  1. While Caroline is in the tower she experiences many moments of terror.  Select the four sentences in the text which you feel are most effective in creating terror.  Discuss your findings with one other student.
  2. Analyze Caroline’s relationship with her husband.  Imagine that you are a marriage counsellor; what advice would you give Caroline? her husband?  Write a letter to one or the other of these two people suggesting how they might improve their relationship in some way that might make it more fulfilling for both.  Assume that Caroline did not visit the tower.
  3. Reread the descriptions of the paintings of Giovanna di Ferramano and the Unknown Gentleman.  Explain how what we learn from these descriptions and the description of the tower at the beginning of the story help to shape our understanding of what happens to Caroline in the tower.
  4. The art of writing a suspenseful story depends on knowing now only how much information to give the reader and where and when to give it, but also on how much to withhold.  With these considerations in mind, and referring to two specific passages, evaluate Laski’s success as a writer of suspenseful stories.

Personal Response

Respond to this story in your journal in any way you wish.  You may want to take some of the following suggestions into consideration.  Describe how you felt when you read the last paragraph of this story.  Does this story remind you of any other stories you know or any dreams you may have had?  Describe them.  Explain what these stories and/or dreams have in common.  Describe your first exposure to a horror story.  How would you rate your response to horror on a scale of one to ten, ten being severe?  Explain how you feel when you are experiencing horror and describe any effects or incidents that are particularly scary for you.  Share your ideas with other students.

Language

Combine the following groups of sentences by using “ing” words, conjunctions, parallel structure, or any other devices you wish.

    • Caroline spoke aloud
    • She spoke with explosive relief.
    • She stopped abruptly.
    • The steps stopped too.
    • She looked down.
    • She looked in the shaft of the tower.
    • She looked down to the narrow staircase.
    • The stair case was unprotected.
    • It was spiralling round and round.
    • The skin of her right hand was torn.
    • The skin was hot with blood.
    • She would never lift her hand from the wall.
    • She would force her rigid legs to move.

“The Sea Devil” by Arthur Gordon (United States)

There is a striking parallel between “The Sea Devil” and the plot of Everyman, a medieval morality play. Everyman’s action begins in heaven: God, looking at mankind’s sinfulness, summons Death, his mighty messenger, to call Everyman to a general reckoning.  Everyman searches high and low for something to stand by him in his hour of need and finds only his own Good Deeds. Good Deeds, and her sister, Knowledge, instruct Everyman in the right way to behave. Thus, at the eleventh hour, Everyman is saved.

“The Sea Devil” is a secular morality tale based on a similar structure: it is a retributive, although uncaring, Nature whom this modern Everyman offends by his tacit belief in man’s proud mastery over Nature. It is this pride that puts him in danger of death and devil (both figured in the giant ray), while his good deed (kindness to the baby porpoise) and his ability to reason finally save him.

Whereas the moral of Everyman is that we should forsake sin and devote ourselves to good deeds, which alone are pleasing to God; the chief moral of The Sea Devil is that we should never let our pride and greed blind us to the fact that we along with beast and bird and fish are all Nature’s creatures. In any fair battle, Nature is more able to turn her giant fist against us than we are to turn ours against her.

But the moral here is somehow not as convincing as the one in Everyman, perhaps because it is constantly being undermined by the diction, pacing, and tone of the whole tale. The man may free the half-dead mullet and vow never again to go casting alone at night, but the reader cannot forget how much of the tale is a celebration of the fierce exhilaration of the hunter at the moment of ambush.

  1. Review the traditional literary conflicts:Character v. Character, Character v. Nature, Character v. Machine, Character v. Self, Character v. Supernatural, Character v. Society, Character v. Destiny. Can you think of other categories? Recall stories, films, novels, poems, myths, and television programs that would fall into the character-against-nature category. Make a list and add suggestions from other students.

Arthur Gordon, 1912—

Arthur Gordon has a reputation for excellence in many pursuits.  He attended Yale University where he earned a B.A. in 1934, and then travelled to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar.  He graduated in 1936.  When the United States joined World War II, he entered the U.S. Army Air Forces as a lieutenant; when the war was over, he was a lieutenant colonel who had earned an Air Medal and Legion of Merit.  His writing career was equally meritorious.  He was managing editor of Good Housekeeping  from 1938-41(post interrupted by Pearl Harbour), and editor of Cosmopolitan from 1946-48.  He has written both novels and non-fiction and has contributed over 200 stories and articles to major magazines.  He makes his home in the city of his birth, Savannah, Georgia.

Exploring the Text

  1. Describe the part of the story that you liked the best and explain why.  Describe the feelings you had when you were reading this story.  Have you ever had similar feelings when you were reading another story?  Explain.  Share your thoughts with a partner.
  2. Reread the four paragraphs describing the protagonist near the beginning of the story, starting with words, “The man turned abruptly” (p.67).  Working with two other people, make a list of all the things we learn about the protagonist in these paragraphs.  Now select any three of these things and show how they become significant later in the story.  Share your ideas with two other students.
  3. Reread the part of the story describing the man’s actions just prior to catching the mullet, then reread his actions just prior to netting the ray.  Compare these two passages looking primarily for difference.  In what ways do these differences prepare us for the accident?
  4. Consider what qualities humans possess that fish do not.  At times during his struggle the man fights as all creatures, including people, fight when they are trapped; at other times his struggles are different.  Analyze the difference in the two fighting techniques.  Are there times when the first technique might work well?  Why does it not work well in this situation?

Language

Reread the paragraph beginning, “Then the sea exploded…” (p. 70), and the two paragraphs that follow it. Make a list of all the action verbs you can find and all the adjectives that indicate a struggle. Using three of these verbs and three of these adjectives, write a paragraph about a very different kind of struggle–one in which no water is involved.