Intro to the Long Poem: In-class discussion

A Super-Superficial look at the complexity of the long poem

We don’t have enough time (it would take weeks) to really nail down the bits and pieces that make these works highly complex and admired, but we can discuss their importance to poetry and to the generation of poetry they belong. To help us discuss these poems, here are some questions to explore today in class:

1. What statement is the poem making about society or a culture? How does poem represent the culture, and what tone does it take towards the culture it discusses?

2. What are some basic elements of language the author uses to make that statement?

3. What are the main themes of the piece used to make the larger cultural statement?

2/17: In-Class Discussion

The Author and Their Characters: Eudora Welty


As the editors of our anthology write, characterization of a story’s characters is something to ponder and analyze. What is the author’s relationship with their characters? Why are they writing this person to be like this!

Understanding the characterization of a character can lead to a clearer understanding of a story. A good writer is often conscious of portrayal of their characters – how the reader will view them – but the authorial purpose of such portrayals, whether “good” or “bad”, protagonist or antagonist, etc., depends on the author.

Today, we are looking at the characters of “Why I Live at the P.O.,” by Eudora Welty. After breaking into small groups, discuss each of the questions listed below with your peers.

The main goal of today is to debate this question: “What may be Welty’s purpose in giving us this slice of small-town, Southern life, and is her treatment of her characters filled with love or indictment?”


To help answer this main question, it will also be important to look at individual characters and also consider some literary-convention questions…

1. Are the characters round or flat, generally speaking? Are some characters rounder or flatter than others? Provide examples (page # and explanation)?

2. Consider point of view – how would you interpret the story differently if Sister was just another character, and not also the narrator? In other words, how does having Sister be the narrator affect what meaning you pull out of your reading?

3. What kind of character is Papa-Daddy, and how is he represented through Sister’s eyes? Is there judgment from the narrator towards him?

4. What about Uncle Rondo? What is his relationship with Sister, and how do they react to each other?

5. What is the relationship between Sister and Stella-Rondo? How serious is the conflict between the two, and where does that conflict come from?

6. Speaking of conflict, are readers supposed to believe that Sister will, in fact, make a permanent residence at the Post Office of China Grove, Mississippi?

7. If you haven’t (or have!) within you’re above answers, discuss the role of humor/exaggeration in the story, especially in regards to characters – what they say, and how they react to each other.

Is Welty’s use of humor meant to ridicule her characters, or something else?

Sherman Alexie: in-class discussion

1. Does Sherman Alexie’s “Flight Patterns” feel more contemporary to you than either Paley or Carver’s story? What parts of the story make you feel either way? Theme; language; content; plot; something else? Discuss as a group, then explain both the part(s) and those specific lines within the story that fulfill your response.


2. One of the things our class discussed on Tuesday was both the conflict and resolution of a story. Explain what tension/conflict within “Flight Patterns” drove the plot towards its conclusion. What kind of resolution is there at the end of the story? What do you infer about William’s character based on his final actions?


3.In “Flight Patterns” two men discuss how people can become trapped by other people’s ideas of who we are, especially when we are seen in terms of our race. What is the nature of this trap? Is it dangerous? Or merely inconvenient? (from the publisher’s website, Grove Atlantic)


4. Here in “Flight Patterns,” Alexie chooses to go with third person point of view. Thinking back to our first readings, where the narrator was a character, how does this affect the reader’s view of the character? What kinds of information, and possibly language, does the reader get that they may not if the story were told from William’s perspective? In what ways are the narrator and William similar?


5. After reading Alexie’s poem “Father and Farther,” you may notice that the native Indian man is a subject of both the poem and “Flight Patterns.” Discuss how Alexie tonally deals with the subject in each piece. Is there a similar resolution to any of the themes within the poem and the story? What are some statements of the native Indian man Alexie is making?