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    A Study Guide for Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
    A Study Guide for Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
    A Study Guide for Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
    Ebook55 pages51 minutes

    A Study Guide for Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateMar 14, 2016
    ISBN9781535832236
    A Study Guide for Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - Gale

      10

      Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

      Robert Pirsig

      1974

      Introduction

      Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is a novel, often described as semi-autobiographical, narrated in the first person (the narrator refers to himself as I) by an unnamed man. The story he tells is described as a series of Chautauquas. (A Chautauqua, in brief, is a series of stories or lectures intended to educate and entertain.) The narrator's story is a divided one, in part concerned with a cross-country motorcycle trip he is taking from Minnesota to California with his young son and a couple of friends. It is also the story of the narrator's former personality, whom the narrator identifies by the name of Phaedrus. In the course of describing his current journey, the narrator relates Phaedrus's journey toward insanity and eventual annihilation. Along the way, Phaedrus's ideas regarding the philosophical notion of Quality are explained, dissected, and elaborated upon by the narrator. The narrator claims that the purpose of the trip and his analysis of Phaedrus and Phaedrus's worldview is to finally bury Phaedrus properly. Through the course of the novel, however, it is revealed that the personality of Phaedrus, the personality the narrator presumes has been eliminated by the shock-therapy treatment he received in a mental facility, has not, in fact, been destroyed. Phaedrus still resides within the narrator's mind and, furthermore, is attempting to reestablish himself.

      Found in both fiction and nonfiction sections of libraries and bookstores, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, originally published in 1974, is available in these more recent editions: the twenty-fifth anniversary edition, published in 1999 by First Quill and by Perennial Classics in 2000, and a 2008 edition published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

      Author Biography

      Pirsig, the son of a professor, was born on September 6, 1928, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Many of the facts regarding Pirsig's life are comparable to the personal history of his narrator in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; this has led to the novel being described as a fictionalized autobiography. Like the narrator, Pirsig, as a child, was a gifted student with an IQ of 170 at the age of nine. He began a course of study at the University of Minnesota in 1943 and was expelled two years later due to academic failure. In 1946, Pirsig enlisted in the army and served until 1948. His years of service included serving in Korea for some time.

      After returning to the United States, Pirsig re-enrolled at the University of Minnesota, studied chemistry and philosophy, and earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1950. With the help of a tutor, Pirsig was granted a place at Benares Hindu University in India, where he studied Eastern philosophy. After his return, he married Nancy Ann James in 1954. The couple had two children, Christopher and Theodore. Pirsig earned his master of arts degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota in 1958.

      Pirsig taught as an instructor of English composition at Montana State College (now University) from 1959 to 1961, where he renewed his interest in philosophy. His focus on a metaphysical notion of quality became single-minded. During this time, Pirsig battled severe anxiety and depression. He pursued graduate studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and also taught there as an instructor in rhetoric from

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