Fear in Literature, Tuesday 4th period

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

This week, Jon was looking very put together: he had a decent (and more modern) haircut and neatly ironed (and less stuffy) clothing. It was offset just a bit by the bags under his eyes, but he'd done what he could.

The board read: The Hunt: The fear of being chased or hunted; the primal fear of being prey.

"Welcome back, everybody," Jon said. "I hope you've all had time to recover from this weekend's...unpleasantness. This week's reading treats this particular fear very literally. Man is prey, is hunted, and is made to feel explicitly like the other animals he hunts.

"At the start of the story, Rainsford is dismissive of his companion's assertion that the hunt isn't fun for the animals, that they experience fear and pain. By the end of the story, do you think he's learned any differently? He also states he's not a murderer; since General Zaroff no longer intended to kill him, do you think his killing Zaroff makes him one? If so, is he justified in it?"



At the end of class, he wrote the next week's assignment on the board: Robert Silverberg, "To See the Invisible Man"

Comments

Re: Class activity

[noonedecidesmyfate]

"Rainsford did seem horrified at the idea of hunting his fellow men," Belle said, "but there's nothing in the text to support that he might have freed them after winning out against Zaroff. Of course, there's nothing there to suggest that he didn't either. I would hope he would have put an end to everything."

Re: Class activity

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"You would hope that, yes. I wonder what you think the last line reflects about his state of mind."