Surfacing 2

1
Surfacing 2

• Gendered Identities and
• Fragmented Bodies in Nature
• Focus chaps 13-14

2
Main Issues

• Main Issues
• Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past)
• ? Her Fragmentary Selves
• Gendered Identities in patriarchal society
• ? Fragmented Bodies Animals
• Nature and Humans Roles in Nature
• ? Fragmented Bodies in Nature
• For Next Week

3
Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past 1.
Lost Father)

• Suspense built by her fear of the father e.g.
  Chap 7 (p. 59) What Im afraid of is my father,
  hidden on the island somewhere and attracted by
  the light perhaps, looming up at the window like
  a huge moth or, if hes still lucid, asking her
  who she is and ordering her out of his house. . .
  .
• Chap 12 It was no longer his death but my own
  that concerned me (p. 107)

4
Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past 2.
Approaching the Past)

• The past is present
• e.g. 1. fence? marriage 2. chap 6 (p. 49)
• Except for the bikini and the color of her hair,
  she could be me at sixteen. . . Joe and David, .
  . . Might be my brother and my father.
• 2. Searching through scrapbooks and family
  albums chap 10 (p. 91)
• All illustrations of ladies but not herself
• A lot of Easter eggs. No monsters, no wars, no
  explosions, no heroism.

5
Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past 2.
Approaching the Past)

• 3. Gradual revelation of the truth about her
  abortion
• Clue chap 8 "I have to be more careful about my
  memories, I have to be sure they're my own" (70).
  
• Chap 5 -- 'remembers' her 'husband,' marriage
  and divorce, "like an amputation, you survive but
  there's less of you" (39)
• Chap 10 --Joe's proposal remembers her
  'wedding' sees herself as an invalid.
• Chap 12 her broken selves.
• ? Chap 17 dives and faces the real past

6
Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past 3.
Childhood and Self-Alienation)

• Childhood Sunday School
• Chap 6 trying to conform and be a Christian
• Chap 8 quitting Sunday School isolation from
  the other children
• End of Chap 12 (p. 108) family album myself in
  stiff dresses, crinolines and tulle, layered like
  store birthday cakes I was civilized at last,
  the finished product.
• After the formal dresses I disappeared no
  wedding pictures, . . .

7
Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past 4.
Marriage and Broken Selves)

• Chaps 1 4 homecoming with a strong sense of
  alienation
• Chap 3 memory of her brothers drowning
• Chap 4 Upon arriving home, she 'remembers' her
  baby and marriage.
• Chap 5 marriage and divorce, "like an
  amputation, you survive but there's less of you"
  (39)The baby "I have to behave as though it
  doesn't exist, . . . it was taken away from me. .
  . . A section of my own life, sliced off from me.
  . . , my own flesh cancelled" (45)

8
Lost Identities Broken Bodies e.g. 1

• Chaps 12 pp. 108-109
• I didnt know when it had happened. . . .but
  after that Id allowed myself to be cut in two.
  Woman sawn apart ina wooden crate, wearing a
  bathing suit, smiling, a trick done with mirrors,
  I read it in a comic book only with me there had
  been an accident and I came apart. The other
  half, the one locked away, was the only one that
  could live I was the wrong half, detached,
  terminal. I was nothing but a head, or, no,
  something minor like a severed thumb numb.

9
Lost Identities Broken Bodies e.g. 2

• Chaps 9 (p. 75)
• The trouble is all in the knob at the top of our
  bodies. Im not against the body or the head
  either only the neck, which created the illusion
  that they are separate. . . . What does the
  illusive separation of the head and the body mean
  here?

10
Lost Identities Broken Bodies e.g. 3 Chaps 13
-14

• Questions for close analysis
• What does she fear and needs rescue from at
  night? (Chap 13 p. 112 --)
• How does David treat womens and animals bodies?
  (Chap 14 pp. 120-21)

11
Gendered Identities in patriarchal society

• I. Anna and David
• Chap 10 pp. 89-90 David, a sexist, gives
  compliment half-heartedly and makes sexist
  comments on her ass casually.
• Chap 11 (pp. 98-99)David as a womanizer
• He said its being honest. What a turd. When I
  get mad he says Im jealous and possessive. .
  .he says jealousy is bourgeois, its a leftover
  from the property ethic. . .but really its to
  show me he cdan do it and get away with it. . . .
  

12
Gendered Identities in patriarchal society

• Anna and David
• 1. What do you think about the discussion of
  Womens Lib on pp. 112-13
• --David 1) failure to understand their causes,
  2) fear of their power
• --the narrator ought to be superior, but
  actually not.
• -- stereotypes in society
• 2. And the relationships between Anna and David?
  (123)
• David bossy only to hide his inner depletion.

13
Gendered Identities in patriarchal society

• II. The narrator and Joe
• Chap 5 Joes nightmare
• Chap 10 Joe's proposal
• Chap 10 When you cant tell the difference
  between your own pleasure and your pain then
  youre an addict. I did that, I fed him
  unlimited supplies of nothing, he wasnt ready
  for it, . . . (84)
• Chap 12 Joes question Do you love me?(p.
  107)
• It was the language again, I couldnt use it
  because it wasnt mine.

14
Gendered Identities in patriarchal society

• II. The narrator and Joe
• How can we characterize Joe? (pp. 111 125)
• --weak in need of the narrators participation
  in his self-love. But the latter is too
  preoccupied with her past to love.
• -- can feel and is not violent The truth is,
  he said bitterly, you think my work is crap, you
  think Im a loser and Im not worth it. His
  face contorted, it was pain I envied him. (p.
  107)

15
Nature Fragmented Bodies in Nature

• Are there any passages you like in these two
  chapters?
• Chap 13 p. 110 vs. p. 114 (the power company) p.
  116 p. 118
• How does the narrator respond to the scene of the
  dead heron? How does David respond to it? (chap
  14)
• p. 118, human destruction/possession of things
  which they cannot possess alive
• David Random Samples choice of the strange
  and exotic without sympathy or understanding. P.
  1

16
Nature Fragmented Bodies in Nature

• How does the narrator live in Nature?
• Sun-time
• Natural toilet p. 119
• Alert for possible dangers (e.g. 119 125)
• Feels alive p. 114

17
For Next Week

• Chap 15 the 'Americans' turn out to be from
  Toronto p. 129
• "The trouble some people have being German," she
  says in reference to the Nazi atrocities, "I have
  being human" (p. 131)
• Chaps 16 18
• exploitation and power struggle between the two
  pairs get intensified
• The narrator dives and faces her past.