Reading Response Prompts
 
These prompts are meant to get you thinking about what you have read and to help focus your thoughts for your reading responses. You can respond to any of them, or, if you have another idea you would rather explore, you are free to write about that instead. Even if you choose to pursue an idea of your own, however, or are not writing a response that day, you should still spend at least a few minutes thinking about each of the prompts in preparation for class. In any case, I suggest doing the reading first, then checking the prompts.  For more information, review the listserv assignment.

Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead: “Part Three: Plant and Phantom, The Time Machine: Polack Czienwicz / Gimme a Gimmick and I’ll Move the World” through “Part Four: Wake”

What can we take away from the ultimate failure of the reconnaissance mission on Anopopei? Who is at fault? Did Cummings devise a bad plan? Was Croft not as effective a leader as he believed himself to be? Was Hearn too inexperienced an officer to lead the misson successfully? Do the other men fail? Or is it all just a series of unfortunate events? Did you find the failure of the mission a disappointment? Why or why not?

While the reconnaissance mission ends in futility, the Anopopei campaign must be considered a resounding success. Yet if the failure of the reconnassance mission is disappointing, the breaking of the Toyaku line and subsequent slaughter of Japanese forces is far from fully satisfying. Why? Meanwhile, you may have heard the saying, “Victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan.” Who is most responsible for the U.S. victory on Anopopei: Cummings? Dalleson? the soldiers themselves? anyone?

If Mailer’s goal was to elicit our “severe compassion,” does he succeed? Now that the novel is over, for whom did you feel the strongest compassion? Is there anyone at the end of the novel who lies beyond the reach of your compassion? Why or why not?

We have discussed realism and naturalism, but now it is important to consider the question of the absurd. What does absurd mean to you, and how do you think it applies to this novel?

 
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