Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner

Lecture Details

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner (AMST 246)Professor Wai Chee Dimock concludes her discussion of As I Lay Dying with an analysis of its generic form. Using Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlett Letter to anchor her discussion of the American literary tradition, she argues that As I Lay Dying continually negotiates the comic and the tragic genres as we shift from one perspective to another one characters comic gain is often anothers tragic loss. She traces the losses and gains of Cash, Jewel, and Darl throughout the novel, showing how their new "balances" by the end reconstitute the Bundren family and draw lines of kinship around the "haves" and "have nots" among family members.0000 - Chapter 1. As I Lay Dying and the American Tradition0548 - Chapter 2. Tragedy in The Scarlett Letter and As I Lay Dying 1229 - Chapter 3. The Comic Dimension of the Fish1842 - Chapter 4. The Comic Economy of As I Lay Dying2447 - Chapter 5. Cash as a "Have Not"3209 - Chapter 6. Anse as a "Have"3429 - Chapter 7. Jewels Broken Kinship with Animals3948 - Chapter 8. The Reconstitution of Kinship4312 - Chapter 9. Darl as a "Have Not"Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website httpoyc.yale.eduThis course was recorded in Fall 2011.