Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (II)

In lieu of talking about persuasion this week, I thought I would talk about how the lady of the castle in which Sir Gawain stayed used persuasion to try and seduce Sir Gawain. The first time the lady tries, she sways Sir Gawain with flattery, logic, and divinity. She starts by saying:
"For I know who you are, Gawain himself,
Honored all over the world. I've heard them
Praise your perfect chivalry, pure
To lords, to ladies, to everyone alive."
To a knight, this is quite a complement. Several things all knights strive to achieve are honesty, chivalry, and chastity. Her acknowledgement of his accomplishments is topnotch flattery.
Then, the lady continues by saying:
"And here you are, and we're alone,
My lord and his men away in the woods,
All men asleep, and my maids too,
Your door shut and locked with a bolt..."
Now, after the flattery, comes the logic, but twisted. She says that everyone is either out of the castle or asleep, so no one would know anything. The funny thing is that she is offering him to relinquish the virtues that she just praised him for having! This contradiction caused a loophole in the lady's argument, which gave Sir Gawain a way out.
In order to redeem her mistake, the lady then throws in her godly reasoning. She says:
"My love for our Lord who rules in Heaven
Restrains me, thought His grace has given me what
all women
Want."
Basically, she is justifying herself by backing up her desires through God's will. Piety is another aspect knights strive to obtain. This appeal to religion is the lady's last resort, and a weak one at that. For Sir Gawain is much smarter and more willful than she originally thought. After trying for three nights, the lady finally gave up. Her modes of persuasion were no match for the noble Sir Gawain.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

By Unknown
Year: late 14th Century

Of all the lovely Arthurian novels and movies I have exposed myself to, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is by far the strangest so far for one reason only. Now, I can accept the possibly false fact that Merlin was a magician and Excalibur was a magical sword. I believe in the fairytale of the Nights of the Round Table and damsels in distress falling in love with their rescuers. However, I cannot possibly believe that Sir Gawain would go gallivanting off in search of the Green Knight to meet his looming death. Sir Gawain chopped the knight's head off, for goodness sake! And you expect me to believe that the Green Knight just picked it back up and walked out of the room (with the head still talking, mind you) with Sir Gawain ready to follow?

In today's society, no man would ever play the game in which the Green Knight initiated and actually hold up their end of the bargain. Typically, you either initiate the fight or run from the fight. The idea of chivalry in medieval times was immaculate. If one made a promise, they kept it. If one's honor was disputed, they fought to prove their worthiness. As a knight, Sir Gawain was bound to uphold a certain standard. Since the Green Knight mocked King Arthur, Sir Gawain, in Arthur's defense, gave the blow that dismembered the Green Knight's head. Already defending his pride, Sir Gawain also agrees to uphold his honor as a man by riding to his death a year and a day later. To ignore his end of the bargain would have surely brought shame upon Sir Gawain. The level of good ol' fashioned courage and honesty still shocks me. Can you imagine what our world would look like if everyone upheld the same honor-code that the Knight of the Round Table have? Wow!!! Despite the unrealistic magically Green Knight, I believe that the societal manners found in medieval times were extraordinary.

An American Childhood (IV)

How did the opening passage of the book lead you to anticipate the ending of the book?

The opening paragraph starts out somewhat depressing. Dillard discusses the aspect of loosing your memory as you age. First, basic facts disappear. Then, your own life experiences go. Finally, the memory of your friends and family fade. What left? Topology, according to Dillard. This fearful passage deals with letting go of the known. Willing or unwilling, memories will die. Everything moves. Everything changes. Nothing remains constant, which is a prevalent theme in Dillard's An American Childhood.

By the end of the book, Dillard is eighteen and leaving for college. Similar fears arise of leaving the known world of Pittsburgh. Her childhood, her friends, and all she's ever been a part of will begin fading and blending together as Dillard moves on with her life. Although she is excited to leave, Dillard cannot help but feeling scared, as all teenagers are when they leave for college. I, myself, have many doubts and fears related to leaving Decatur behind. Of course, I will visit on occasion, but the life I know will disappear the instant that I leave. Younger children will move up and replace my class. Teachers will retire. Friendships will falter. The close knit community I have been creating for myself for the past twelve years of my life will no longer protect me. Given a few years and much of the community will no longer know my name. All Dillard and I have left is the unknown future. The past will fade, and all that remains is topology. Dillard has come full circle.

An American Childhood (III)

Did the book come to a satisfactory closure for you? Why/why not?

The book's ending did not fully satisfy me. The majority of the last chapter consisted of Dillard talking about her drawing, which I do not personally care to hear about. There is the possibility that her drawing was a metaphor for something, but I failed to realized what.

I did like, however, the last page of the An American Childhood. It talked about Dillard leaving her high school and moving on to college. The college of her choice was Hollins College in Virginia. The headmistress wanted Dillard to attend there in the hope that Hollins College would "smooth off her rough edges." Dillard's response was "I had hopes for my rough edges. I wanted to use them as a can opener, to cut myself a hole in the world's surface, and exit through it. Would I be ground, instead, to a nub? Would they send me home, an ornament to my breed, in a jewelry bag?" This dialogue, to me, summed up every wild girl's fear of growing up. Will society chew you up and spit you out as a conforming, well-behaved young lady? Dillard was completely content with who she was and didn't want any one to change her. I, personally, applaud her stubbornness and hope that she never changed.

Unfortunately, that small snippet of dialogue was the only part of the ending that I truly enjoyed. The last sentence ends with Dillard once again talking about early settlers around the rivers, which leaves the reader wondering about how the past came to be the present.

An American Childhood (II)

Comment on the perspective from which the book is told and how the author's choice affects your relationship with the book's content. 

Annie Dillard naturally writes in first person since An American Childhood is an autobiography of her life. Strangely, the narrator tells the story from the point of view of whatever age Dillard was at that point in time but with amplified adult word choice. Obviously, a child would not think of the figurative language described to the reader, but the imaginative observations are clearly only from a child's perspective. Previously, I referred to the examination of skin to past the time. This excerpt encompasses one aspect of the child's perspective on life: 

"Loose under their shinbones, as in hammocks, hung the relaxed flesh of their calves. You could push and swing this like a baby in a swing. Their heals were dry and hard, sharp at the curved edge. The bottom of their toes had flattened, holding the imprint of life's smooth floors even when they were lying down. I would not let this happen to me." 

The reader can see Annie Dillard pushing the calve muscle of her parents back and forth, watching it swing. These small amusements in life are what separate childhood from adulthood. While no child has the same experiences in life, Dillard connects through the imagination and observation common to all children. An American Childhood encompasses the essence of young human behavior so that all readers may connect and laugh at the funny ways a child learns about life. 

An American Childhood

Annie Dillard
1987

Why did you choose this book? What were your expectations? Why did you expect what you did? How is the book living up to your expectations?

Several weeks ago we read an excerpt from an Annie Dillard novel. The chapter title was called "The Chase" in which the young girl recounts a one-sided snowball fight with passing cars that turned into a run for her life. While I do not typically enjoy reading from a literature textbook, I was quite taken by this particular excerpt. Something in the way Dillard told her story reminded me of my childhood. Much to my pleasant surprise, I found Dillard's An American Childhood (which is the book "The Chase" is from) in my uncle's massive book collection and decided to read it.

From what I had read previously, I expected Dillard's childhood to be filled with as much adventure and imagination as mine was. After reading her account of running with the football boys through the town (probably in a time when girls weren't suppose to be doing that), I instantly fell in love with the tomboyish child. And yet, I somehow figured she would still turn out to be a normal adult female.

Surprisingly, An American Childhood is much different from what I had imagined. Dillard does an impressive job of quickly and concisely describing her life in Pittsburgh. The reader gains much incite from a limited amount of knowledge. However, unlike "The Chase," so far Dillard's childhood has lacked the major events I thought she would surely write about. Her young life is fairly boring and uneventful from an adult's perspective. She spends her time examining family members' skin and memorizing the layout of Pittsburgh. Although An American Childhood is an autobiography, I was under the impression that her life was filled with enough excitement that she just HAD to write a story of her childhood. Even though I was slightly disappointed, I did learn one thing. . . . Most childhoods are relatively mundane in retrospect. What makes them so amazing is the mere fact that the life events are seen through a child's eye. Everything is a new and exciting experience. Annie Dillard does an amazing job showing the reader how children perceive the world.