Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner

Lecture Details

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner (AMST 246)Professor Wai Chee Dimock continues her discussion of Light in August by showing how the kindness of strangers turns into malice in the cases of social reformer Joanna Burden and Reverend Hightower. Whereas that malice assumes comedic tones in the depiction of Joannas death, it has more complex valences in the case of Reverend Hightower, who is both ethically delicate towards his neighbors and insensitive to his adulterous wife. Professor Dimock concludes by observing the kinship between the dual narratives of Lena Grove and Joe Christmas as, respectively, the undramatic and dramatic strands of the novel. Drawing on her reading from last lecture, she shows how both Joe and Lenas consciousness is marked by the gerund form and a passivity of agency that makes them receptacles for the dramatic actions of others. Warning This lecture contains graphic content andor adult language that some viewers may find disturbing0000 - Chapter 1. Christianity and Southern Hospitality0430 - Chapter 2. The Neighbor as Political Theology0706 - Chapter 3. The Resentment of Southerners for Northern Abolitionists1052 - Chapter 4. Tragedy as Comedy in the Death of Joanna Burden 1907 - Chapter 5. The Reverend Hightower and the Malice of Strangers2407 - Chapter 6. The Ethical Challenge of Hightower3356 - Chapter 7. The Switchability of Joe Christmas and Lena Grove3841 - Chapter 8. Kinship Between Lena Grove and Joe Christmas4244 - Chapter 9. The Passivity of Lena Grove and Joe ChristmasComplete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website httpoyc.yale.eduThis course was recorded in Fall 2011.