World War I

Soldiers Home

III. Bloody Conflict

A. Trenches = No Mans Land =
1. Tactics
A. Artillery
B. Grenades
C. Bayonets
2. Conditions
A. Human Smell
B. Rats
C. Water

III. Bloody Conflicts (cont.)

A. Technology

1. Poison Gas
2. Tanks
3. Airplanes

III. Bloody Conflict (cont.)

A. Allies in Trouble
1. Bolshevik Revolution = Communism
a. Russia pull-out in 1917.
2. Famous Leaders
a. General Foch Allies
b. General Pershing US Troops
(alone)
US unprepared for BATTLE!!

III. Bloody Conflict

3. Battle of Argonne Forest
a. Last stand for Germans (1918)
i. US breaks through
German lines.
D. War Ends
1. Armistice Day
a. 11-11-11 (1918)

Time it was
And what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence
A time of confidences.
Long ago
It must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
Theyre all thats left you.

Theme: life lesson!

Preserve your memories.

Carpe diem!
Time passes on quickly.
Innocence is quickly lost, and old age sets
in!
We are about to read a story that
reinforces how quickly innocence can be
lost!

Metaphor/Symbol
Bookends represent the two ends of life.
the pages of our lives (Jonathon Crain)

Poetic Language
Alliteration
Time = the ts
What and was = the ws

Assonance
Was, what, a, and long = the as

Consonance
It, what, must, photograph, thats, left = ts
Innocence and confidences = the ss

Soldiers Home
Ernest Hemingway

Modernism
Definition: Modernists sought to capture the essence
of modern life in both FORM and CONTENT
Characteristics: How did Modernists capture the
essence of modern life in both form and content?
They constructed their work out of fragments.
They omitted expositions, transitions, resolutions,
and explanations.
Their themes were implied rather than directly
stated.
They created a sense of uncertainty.
They force readers to draw their own conclusions.

Hemingways style
Hemingway is Modernism at its finest.
Hemingway is a man of few words
Hemingway has said that his writing is like
an iceberg; that is, one-eighth of the story
lies above the surface of the sea (what's
written), and seven-eighths lies beneath
the surface (what's implied).

Hemingways Iceberg Theory

Soldiers Home
This is a short story about a soldier who
has returned from WWI.

Your Notes = Your Purpose

Mark 10 textual examples that describe
Krebs
Before the war.
During the war.
After the war.

Lets look at Krebs before the war.

Methodist college student from Kansas
There is a picture of him among his
fraternity brothers, all of them wearing
exactly the same height and style collar.
All Hemingway tells us is that he enlisted
in the Marines in 1917.
What can we assume about Krebs without
being told by Hemingway? What is
implied?

Krebs during the war.

The picture of Krebs and a friend with two
German girls.
Krebs and the corporal look too big for
their uniforms. The German girls are not
beautiful.
Krebs has seen combat at Belleau Wood,
Soissons, the Champagne, St. Mihiel, and
in the Argonne.

After the war

At first, he doesnt want to talk about the war.
Then when he starts to NEED to talk, no one wants to
hear it. What does this suggest about the American
people?
Krebs starts making stories up. How does he feel about
his lies?
All of the times that had been able to make him feel cool
and clear inside himself when he thought of them; the
times so long back when he had done the one thing, the
only thing for a man to do, easily and naturally, when he
might have done something else, now lost their cool,
valuable quality and then were lost themselves.

After the war

Even his lies were too sensational for the pool
hall.
Krebs acquired nausea in regard to experience
that is the result of untruth or exaggeration, and
when he occasionally met another man who had
really been a soldier and they talked a few
minutes in the dressing room at a dance he fell
in the easy pose of the old soldier among other
soldiers: that he had been badly, sickeningly
frightened all the time. In this way he lost
everything.

After the war

On the whole he had liked Germany
better. He did not want to leave Germany.
He did not want to come home. Still, he
had come home.

An average day

Slept late
Walk down town to the library for a book.
Ate lunch at home.
Read on the front porch.
Played pool. He loved to play pool.
Practiced clarinet
Strolled down town
Read and went to bed

Girls
Vaguely, he wanted a girl but he did not want to
have to work to get her.
He would have liked to have a girl but he did not
want to have to spend a long time getting her.
He did not want to get into the intrigue and the
politics.
He did not want to have to do the courting.
He did not need a girl. The army taught him
that.

Girls
You did not need a girl unless you thought
about them.
Then sooner or later you always got one.
That was the thing about French and
German girls. There was not all this
talking.
He liked American girls, but the world
they were in was not the world he was in.

The ending
His parents start worrying about him. How
do they address it?
Take the car.
Mom not Dad visits with him.
God has some work for every one to doThere
can be no idle hands in His kingdom.
Im not in His kingdom.
Ive worried about you too muchI know the
temptations you must have been exposed toI
have prayed for you

The ending
The other boys are settling down, getting
jobs, getting married
Your father does not want to hamper your
freedomcarjob.
Dont you love your dear mother?
NoI dont love anybodyI didnt mean
itI was just angry at somethingI didnt
mean I didnt love you.

The ending
Krebs is affectionate. He kisses her hair.
Yet he feels sick and nauseated.
Now you pray.
I cant.
Do you want me to pray for you?
Yes.

The ending
He had tried so to keep his life from being
complicated. Still, none of it had touched
him. He had felt sorry for his mother and
she had made him lieHe wanted his life
to go smoothly. It had just gotten going
that way. Well, that was all over now,
anyway

ERNEST
HEMINGWAY

BIOGR
APHY

WENT TO WORLD WAR

ONE

Not as a soldier but an

ambulance driver
Seriously wounded
Awarded the Italian Silver
Medal

FELL IN LOVE, FELL OUT OF LOVE

with Agnes
Von
Kurowsky

Ernie, dear boy,

I am writing this
late at night after a
long think by
myself, & I am
afraid it is going to
hurt you, but, I'm
sure it won't harm
you permanently.

So, Kid (still Kid to me, &

always will be) can you
forgive me some day for
unwittingly deceiving you?
Then - & believe me when I
say this is sudden for me,
too - I expect to be
married soon. And I hope
& pray that after you
thought things out, you'll be
able to forgive me & start a
wonderful career & show
what a man you really are.

LIFE OF ERNEST
HEMINGWAY

STORY OF SOLDIERS
HOME

WROTE SOLDIERS HOME

AFTER WWI ENDED.

SET AT A TIME AFTER WWI

FELL IN LOVE WITH AGNES VON

KUROWSKY ONLY TO END UP
HEART BROKEN

HAROLD WAS A MAN UNABLE TO

LOVE A WOMAN

FACED THE BLOODY AND

SADDENING WAR

UNABLE TO FEEL OR LOVE

ANYONE- NOT EVEN HIS
MOTHER

found Oak Park dull compared to the adventures of war, the beauty
of foreign lands and the romance of an older woman.
the war had matured him beyond his years.
his parents, who never quite appreciated what their son had been
through, was difficult.
They began to question his future
He had received some $1,000 dollars in insurance payments for
his war wounds, which allowed him to avoid work for nearly a year.
For a time though, Hemingway questioned his role as a war hero,
and when asked to tell of his experiences he often exaggerated to
satisfy his audience.
Hemingway's story "Soldier's Home" conveys his feelings of
frustration and shame upon returning home to a town and to
parents who still had a romantic notion of war and who didn't
understand the psychological impact the war had had on their son.

Style of writing
Emphasis more on womens struggle and
womens life within the Southern society of
the late 19th Century.
Several of her works were not initially
published because of subject matter.

Chopin wrote the story in 1898 but never tried to publish it as it

would be unacceptable at that time.

Readers may develop a variety of expectations about the characters

and the plot. Bobinot buys a can of shrimp to please the wife as
Calixta is fond of shrimp. The excuses Bobinot frames on the way
home suggest that he is somewhat intimidated by his over
scrupulous housewife.
The relationship between the plot and storm is most evident in Part
II. The first sentence of the paragraph in Part II relates in mood to
the last sentence of Part I. Calixta is also not worried as she is
secure in her family relationships.
The next causal relation between storm and plot is established when
the rain falls in such torrents that Alcee has to come into the house
to avoid being drenched. Only then, we noticed through Alcee that
Calixta has a fuller figure, vivacity, melting blue eyes, and disheveled
yellow hair. These details increase the level of sensuality.

 The affair with Alcee by no means indicates that Calixta is promiscuous or

unhappy with the family. Perhaps, her encounter with Alcee has
heightened her concern for her husband.
By telling us that Clarisse is delighted at the thought of staying a month
longer in Biloxi, Chopin diminishes any blame the reader might attach to
Alcee. Although Alcee is unfaithful to his wife, his wife doesnt regret his
absence.
Chopin regards her characters affectionately. Blame is diminished not
only by Clarisses letter but by other means. For instance, at an earlier
time, when Calixta was a virgin, Alcees honor forbade him to prevail.
And by associating the affair with the storm, Chopin implies that this
moment of passion is in accord with nature. For example, Calixtas lips
were as red and as moist as pomegranate seed, and her passion was
like a white flame, suggesting that the characters are transported to a
strange (though natural) world.

Although the people are less virtuous, Chopin scarcely highlights

this fact. Rather, she suggests that the world is a fairly pleasant
place in which there is enough happiness to go all around. So the
storm passed and everyone was happy. There is no need to
suggest future episodes that Calixta and Alcee deceive Bobinot nor
any regret in their moment of passion.

There seems to be a suggestion of class distinction between Calixta

and Alcee as reflected in their speech and expressions. Calixta
speaks the language of an uneducated woman largely confined to
her home, whereas Alceea man who presumably deals with men
in a larger societyspeaks the language of the Anglo world.

So, while Bobinot and Calixta live in a very limited world, Clarisse is
a woman of the world.

Joyce Carol Oates

Biography

Joyce Carol Oates

American writer, poet, and
essayist.
Professor at Princeton
University.
As the author of more than
50 novels and numerous
non-fiction works, is
famous for being
exceptionally prolific.
Talk about characters

(b. 1938)

Her Life
Joyce Carol Oates has often expressed an intense nostalgia
for the time and place of her childhood, and her working-class
upbringing is lovingly recalled in much of her fiction.
Yet she has also admitted that the rural, rough-and-tumble
surroundings of her early years involved "a daily scramble for
existence.
Grew up in the countryside outside of Lockport, New York, she
attended a one-room schoolhouse in the elementary grades.
As a small child, she told stories instinctively by way of
drawing and painting before learning how to write. After
receiving the gift of a typewriter at age fourteen, she began
consciously training herself, "writing novel after novel"
throughout high school and college.

Story Behind the Story

Joyce Carol Oates was inspired to write "Where Are You Going,
Where Have You Been?" after reading an account in Life magazine
of a charismatic but insecure young man who had enticed and then
killed several girls in Tucson, Arizona, during the early 1960s.
Based on Bob Dylans song and dedicated to Bob Dylan.
Its All Over Now Baby Blue (1965).
This story was first published by the literary journal Epoch in 1966
and was included in Oates's 1970 short story collection The Wheel
of Love.
Oates herself republished it in 1974 as the title story for Where Are
You Going, Where Have You Been?: Stories of Young America.
This collection's subtitle points to Oates's ongoing interest in
adolescence, especially the psychological and social turmoil that
arises during this difficult period.

 This story is known by many as one of Oates's best and in the

words of scholar G. F. Waller, it is "one of the masterpieces of
the genre.

Oates's realism often garners such praise; critics and readers
alike have commended the presentation of the story's central
character, Connie, as a typical teenager who may be disliked,
pitied, or even identified with.
A similar believability is instilled in Arnold Friend's
manipulative stream of conversation and its psychological
effects on a vulnerable teenager.
Critics also praise the story for its evocative language, its use
of symbols, and an ambiguous conclusion which allows for
several interpretations of the story's meaning.
In 1988, a film version of the story was released entitled
Smooth Talk.

Smooth Talk
Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film
Festival,
1986
Released: 1985
Running time: 92 minutes

Director: Joyce Chopra

Production Company: Goldcrest Films;
American Playhouse; Nepenthe
Productions
Producer: Martin Rosen
Executive Producer: Lindsay Law
Associate Producer: Timothy Marx
Screenplay: Tom Cole
Director of Photography: James
Glennon
Editor: Patrick Dodd
Music Director: James Taylor
Original Music: Bill Payne, Russ
Kunkel, George Massenburg
Casting: Mary Colquhoun
Production Design: David Wasco
Costume Design: Carol Oditz

Symbolism

Connie- the one who is

being conned

Arnold Friend- An old

fiend

June- as constant as
the month of June each
year

The X
Marking Connie as his next conquest/
property
Intending to harm/kill her, crossing her
out

Alternate Interpretations
Arnold friend is satan himself!
shaggy, shabby black hair that looked crazy as a wig
He was standing in a strange way leaning back against
the car as if he were balancing himself.
she saw how pale the skin around his eyes was, like
holes that were not in shadow but instead in light. His eyes
were like chips of broken glass that catch the light in an
amiable way.
He stood there so stiffly relaxed, pretending to be
relaxed, with one hand idly on the door handle as if he were
keeping himself up
I aint made plans for coming in that house where I dont
belong but just for you to come out to me
I know everybody.
Right now theyre-uh-theyre drinking. Sitting around, he
said vaguely, squinting as if he were staring all the way to
town and over to aunt Tillies back yard.

Boots stuffed to hold the hooves in.

Wig to cover the horns.
Face looks older upon closer inspection.
Seems to know what the family was doing precisely
at the moment.
Knew Connies and her friends name.
Couldnt enter the house instead lures her out.
X is a tilted cross.
33 19 17, The Old Testament of the Bible counted
from backwards, 33rd book from the end is Judges.
Chapter 19 verse 17:

And when he had lifted up his eyes, he saw a wayfaring

man in the street of the city: and the old man said,
"Whither goest thou? and whence comest thou?"

The Devil is the

oldest fiend!

Joyce Carol Oates

A Brief Biography
from Greg Johnson's
A Reader's Guide to the Recent Novels of Joyce
Carol Oates
Copyright 1996 by Greg Johnson
(printed by permission)
Joyce Carol Oates has often expressed an intense
nostalgia for the time and place of her childhood,
and her working-class upbringing is lovingly recalled
in much of her fiction. Yet she has also admitted
that the rural, rough-and-tumble surroundings of her
early years involved "a daily scramble for
existence." Growing up in the countryside outside of
Lockport, New York, she attended a one-room
schoolhouse in the elementary grades. As a small
child, she told stories instinctively by way of drawing
and painting before learning how to write. After
receiving the gift of a typewriter at age fourteen, she
began consciously training herself, "writing novel
after novel" throughout high school and college.

Success came early: while attending Syracuse University on scholarship,

she won the coveted Mademoiselle fiction contest. After graduating as
valedictorian, she earned an M.A. in English at the University of
Wisconsin, where she met and married Raymond J. Smith after a threemonth courtship; in 1962, the couple settled in Detroit, a city whose
erupting social tensions suggested to Oates a microcosm of the violent
American reality. Her finest early novel, them, along with a steady stream
of other novels and short stories, grew out of her Detroit experience.
"Detroit, my 'great' subject," she has written, "made me the person I am,
consequently the writer I amfor better of worse."
Between 1968 and 1978, Oates taught at the University of Windsor in
Canada, just across the Detroit river. During this immensely productive
decade, she published new books at the rate of two or three per year, all
the while maintaining a full-time academic career. Though still in her
thirties, Oates had become one of the most respected and honored
writers in the United States. Asked repeatedly how she managed to
produce so much excellent work in a wide variety of genres, she gave
variations of the same basic answer, telling the New York Times in 1975
that "I have always lived a very conventional life of moderation,
absolutely regular hours, nothing exotic, no need, even, to organize my
time." When a reporter labeled her a "workaholic," she replied, "I am not
conscious of working especially hard, or of 'working' at all. Writing and
teaching have always been, for me, so richly rewarding that I don't think
of them as work in the usual sense of the word."

In 1978, Oates moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where she

continues to teach in Princeton University's creative writing
program; she and her husband also operate a small press
and published a literary magazine, The Ontario Review.*
Shortly after arriving in Princeton, Oates began writing
Bellefleur , the first in a series of ambitious Gothic novels
that simultaneously reworked established literary genres
and reimagined large swaths of American history.
Published in the early 1980s, these novels marked a
departure from the psychological realism of her earlier
work. But Oates returned powerfully to the realistic mode
with ambitious family chronicles (You Must Remember
This, Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart),
novels of female experience (Solstice, Marya : A Life), and
even a series of pseudonymous suspense novels
(published under the name "Rosamond Smith") that again
represented a playful experiment with literary genre. As
novelist John Barth once remarked, "Joyce Carol Oates
writes all over the aesthetical map."

The dramatic trajectory of Oates's career, especially her

amazing rise from an economically straitened childhood to
her current position as one of the world's most eminent
authors, suggests a feminist, literary version of the mythic
pursuit and achievement of the American dream. Yet for all
her success and fame, Oates's daily routine of teaching and
writing has changed very little, and her commitment to
literature as a transcendent human activity remains
steadfast. Not surprisingly, a quotation from that other
prolific American writer, Henry James, is affixed to the
bulletin board over her desk, and perhaps best expresses
her own ultimate view of her life and writing: "We work in the
darkwe do what we canwe give what we have. Our
doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest
is the madness of art."
*JCO's husband, Raymond J. Smith, died in 2008; the Ontario
Review ceased publication as well. Celestial Timepiece

Joyce Carol Oates was inspired to write "Where Are You Going, Where Have You
Been?" after reading an account in Life magazine of a charismatic but insecure young
man who had enticed and then killed several girls in Tucson, Arizona, during the early
1960s. Transformed into fiction, this story was first published by the literary journal
Epoch in 1966 and was included in Oates's 1970 short story collection The Wheel of
Love. Critical acclaim was so swift and certain that as early as 1972, critic Walter
Sullivan noted that it was "one of her most widely reprinted stories and justly so." Along
with the story's frequent appearance in textbooks and anthologies, Oates herself
republished it in 1974 as the title story for Where Are You Going, Where Have You
Been?: Stories of Young America. This collection's subtitle points to Oates's ongoing
interest in adolescence, especially the psychological and social turmoil that arises
during this difficult period. Her preoccupation with these topics, along with her keen
sense of the special pressures facing teenagers in contemporary society, is evident in
''Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?''
This story is seen by many as one of Oates's best and in the words of scholar G. F.
Waller, it is "one of the masterpieces of the genre." Oates's realism often garners such
praise; critics and readers alike have commended the presentation of the story's
central character, Connie, as a typical teenager who may be disliked, pitied, or even
identified with. A similar believability is instilled in Arnold Friend's manipulative stream
of conversation and its psychological effects on a vulnerable teenager. Critics also
praise the story for its evocative language, its use of symbols, and an ambiguous
conclusion which allows for several interpretations of the story's meaning. In 1988, a
film version of the story was released entitled Smooth Talk.

Criticisms

Greg Johnson interprets the story as a "feminist allegory." When the ironically named
Arnold Friend first arrives at Connie's house, driving his sleazy gold jalopy and
accompanied by a strange, ominously silent male sidekick, Connie deflects him with her
usual pert sarcasms and practiced indifference. Throughout the long scene that follows,
Connie's terror slowly builds. The fast-talking Arnold Friend insinuates himself into her
thinking, attempting to persuade her that he's her "lover," his smoothtalking
seductiveness finally giving way to threats of violence against Connie's family if she
doesn't surrender to his desires. Oates places Connie inside the kitchen and Arnold
Friend outside with only a locked screen door between them. While Friend could enter by
force at any time, Oates emphasizes the seduction, the sinister singsong of Friend's
voice: a demonic outsider, he has arrived to wrest Connie from the protective confines of
her family, her home, and her own innocence. Oates makes clear that Friend represents
Connie's initiation not into sex itself--she is already sexually experienced--but into sexual
bondage: "I promise it won't last long," he tells her, "and you will like me the way you get
to like people you're close to. You will. It's all over for you here." As feminist allegory;
then, the story describes the beginning of a young and sexually attractive girl's
enslavement within a conventional, male-dominated sexual relationship...
While in realistic terms, especially considering the story's source, Connie may, be
approaching her actual death, in allegorical terms she is dying spiritually, surrendering
her autonomous selfhood to male desire and domination. Her characterization as a
typical girl reaching sexual maturity suggests that her fate represents that suffered by
most young women-unwillingly and in secret terror--even in America in the 1960s. As a
feminist allegory, then, " Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is a cautionary
tale, suggesting that young women are "going" exactly, where their mothers and
grandmothers have already "been": into sexual bondage at the hands of a male "Friend."
Understanding Joyce Carol Oates, 1987: 101-02

Larry Rubin argues that Connie has fallen asleep in the sun and has a dream
about a composite figure that symbolizes her fear of the adult world. He
discusses the references to sleep that frame the Arnold Friend episode and the
nightmare quality of her inability to control the situation:
The fact that Connie recognizes the sensual music being broadcast on Arnold's
car radio as being the same as that emanating from her own in the house
provides another strong clue to his real nature--that of a dream-like projection
of her erotic fantasies. His music and hers, Oates tells us, blend perfectly and
indeed Arnold's voice is perceived by Connie as being the same as that of the
disc jockey on the radio. Thus the protagonist's inner state of consciousness is
being given physical form by her imagination.... Connie's initial response to her
first view of Arnold tire night before., in the shopping center, was one of intense
sexual excitement; now she discovers how dangerous that excitement can be
to her survival as a person. Instinctively, she recoils; but the conflict between
excitement and desire, on the one hand, and fear, on the other, leaves her will
paralyzed, and she cannot even dial the phone for help. Such physical
paralysis in the face of oncoming danger is a phenomenon familiar to all
dreamers, like being unable to run from the monster because your legs won't
respond to your will.
Finally, the rather un-devil-like tribute that Arnold pays Connie as she finally
succumbs to his threats against her family and goes out of the house to
him-"you're better than them [her family] because not a one of there would
have done this for you" is exactly what poor, unappreciated Connie wants to
hear. She is making a noble sacrifice, and in her dream she gives herself full
credit for it. Explicator 42 (1984): 57-59

Joyce M. Wegs contends that "Arnold is clearly a

symbolic Satan. As is usual with Satan, he is in disguise;
the distortions in his appearance and behavior suggest not
only that his identity is faked but also hint at his real self...
When he introduces himself, his name too hints at his
identity. For "friend" is uncomfortably close to "fiend"; his
initials could well stand for Arch Fiend. The frightened
Connie sees Arnold as "only half real": he "had driven up
the driveway all right but had come from nowhere before
that and belonged nowhere." Especially supernatural is his
mysterious knowledge about her, her family, and her
friends. At one point, he even seems to be able to see all
the way to the barbecue which Connie's family is attending
and to get a clear vision of what all the guests are doing.
Journal of Narrative Technique 5 (1975):69-70.

But Mike Tierce and John Michael Crafton argue for an opposite
interpretation: they see Arnold as a savior or messiah figure and base
their case on identifying Arnold with Bob Dylan, the popular singer to whom
Oates dedicated the story.
In the mid-sixties Bob Dylan's followers perceived him to be a messiah.
According to his biographer [Anthony Scaduto], Dylan was a "rock-and-roll
king." It is no wonder then that Arnold speaks with "the voice of the man on the
radio," the disc jockey whose name, Bobby King, is a reference to "Bobby"
Dylan, the "king" of rock-and-roll. Dylan was more than a "friend" to his
listeners; he was "Christ revisited," "the prophet leading [his followers] into [a
new] Consciousness." In fact, "people were making him an idol; . . . thousands
of men and women, young and old, felt their lives entwined with his because
they saw him as a mystic, a messiah who would lead them to salvation."
That Oates consciously associates Arnold Friend with Bob Dylan is clearly
suggested by the similarities of their physical descriptions. Arnold's "shaggy,
shabby black hair that looked crazy as a wig," his "long and hawklike" nose, his
unshaven face, his "big and white" teeth, his lashes, "thick and black as if
painted with a black tarlike material," and his size ("only an inch or so taller
than Connie") are all characteristic of Bob Dylan....
Arnold is the personification of popular music, particularly Bob Dylan's music;
and as such, Connie's interaction with him is a musically induced fantasy, a
kind of "magic carpet ride" in a "convertible jalopy painted gold." Rising out of
Connie's radio, Arnold Friend/Bob Dylan is a magical, musical messiah; he
persuades Connie to abandon her father's house. As a manifestation of her
own desires, he frees her from the limitations of a fifteen-year-old girl, assisting
her maturation by stripping her of her childlike vision.
Studies in Short
Fiction 22 (1985):220, 223