Reading Response Prompts |
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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.
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| Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead:
“Part Two, Argil and Mold, Chapter 12” through “Part Three, Plant and Phantom, Chapter 2”” |
This reading puts General Cummings into clearer focus. Consider the scenes in which we see him making command decisons. What are Cummings’s strengths as a commander? What are his weaknesses? Why does he assign Hearn to recon when he does?
Immediately after Cummings makes the decision to send the reconnaissance platoon to the far side of Anopopei, Mailer gives us the “Time Machine” section about him. Here we see Cummings’s childhood and youth, and get a sense of him as a political general. Again, consider Cummings in the context of Herakleitos’s axiom, “Character is destiny.” How does his past shape his character, and how does his character shape his fate, both within the “Time Machine” section and the novel as a whole to this point?
Hearn was not happy serving on the general’s staff. Is he happier in command of the platoon? Is he a good officer? Is Croft right when he thinks that Hearn is making mistakes?
The first couple of chapters of the “Plant and Phantom” section give us quite a lot of personal interaction between members of the platoon, even members who come from quite different backgrounds and who are predisposed to dislike each other. In fact, given what we know of these characters’ prejudices, we might be surprised at some of these conversations. How do we explain the apparent disconnection between what the men believe and how they act?
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