Journal Prompt

August 24, 2012

The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at

the right time. The consequence of this is that I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see

their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. Still, they have one thing I envy.

Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.

Themes of The Book Thief

Man v manMan v nature

Man v society

Man v fateMan v self

Does Death see anything new?

So, how is our world today?

- No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs

the social condition, not vice versa.

- Living is abnormal.

The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in

the right place at the right time. The consequence of this is that I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good

sense to die.

So what are the options?Doesn’t sound like there is much hope in the world…

John Paul Sartre

All human actions are equivalent and are on principle doomed to

failure.

Samuel Beckett

Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better.

Welcome to Absurdism

Absurd:

Ridiculously unreasonable or unsound

Having no rational or orderly relationship to human life

Not necessarily comic

A philosophy based on the belief that the universe is irrational and meaningless and that the search for order brings the individual into conflict with the universe.

Definitions

Absurdism:

NihilismA viewpoint that

traditional values and belief are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless

A doctrine that denies and objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths

A philosophy that focuses on how individuals function in an unfathomable and the plight of the individual who must assume responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong.

A couple of other definitions of note

Existentialism

The Absurdist abandoned all hope of finding meaning in life and embraced a sort of nihilism. The

Absurdist was convinced that everything was meaningless. The subjectivity of a Romantic was appealing to the Absurdist. However, even that

implied that something was transcendent--a desire--and the Absurdist would have nothing to do with

that.

In a Nutshell:

What do Absurdist writers want to do?

Shock or stun the audience

Rely on Symbols

Focus on non-realistic situations to make a point

Heavy on dialogue, short on action.

There is no God. There is no afterlife.

There is no meaning.

Meet Franz Kafka. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Feeling depressed yet?

Unhappy in lifeUnforgettable in death

Abused by his

father

Unloved

Unwanted

Destined to

disappoint

Isolated

Insufficient

Alienated

His view on living:

“A First

Sign of the

Beginning

of

Understan

ding is the

Wish to

Die.” 

His view on living:

“The

meaning

of life is

that it

stops.” 

His view on living:

“Slept,

awoke,

slept,

awoke,

miserable

life.” 

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.” 

Kafka’s view of literature

Any

surpris

e he

died

young?

Read “The Metamorphosis” chapter 1 (pp 11-24)

Write a one paragraph summary of the chapter.

Look online for summaries of transformation myths (Arcas, Arachne, Atlas, Callisto, Charbydis, Cygnus, Echo, Narcissus)

Based on your research, is Gregor’s transformed figure an appropriate one for his life?

Homework (wait…what?)