Pip’s poor dreams

Larry observes in the assignment for Essay 3 that Pip’s five dreams are on pages 15, 79, 258, and 339. It’s unclear what dream is discussed on 339, and, more obscurely, there are only four entries for five dreams.

The first three seem to work.

15:

If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drifting down the river on a strong spring-tide, to the Hulks; a ghostly pirate calling out to me through a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the gibbet-station, that I had better come ashore and be hanged there at once, and not put it off. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had been inclined, for I knew that at the first faint dawn of morning I must rob the pantry. There was no doing it in the night, for there was no getting a light by easy friction then; to have got one I must have struck it out of flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very pirate himself rattling his chains.

(This and all quotations drawn from the Gutenberg e-text.)

79:

I had sadly broken sleep when I got to bed, through thinking of the strange man taking aim at me with his invisible gun, and of the guiltily coarse and common thing it was, to be on secret terms of conspiracy with convicts,—a feature in my low career that I had previously forgotten. I was haunted by the file too. A dread possessed me that when I least expected it, the file would reappear. I coaxed myself to sleep by thinking of Miss Havisham’s, next Wednesday; and in my sleep I saw the file coming at me out of a door, without seeing who held it, and I screamed myself awake.

258:

Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of Estella, and miserably dreamed that my expectations were all cancelled, and that I had to give my hand in marriage to Herbert’s Clara, or play Hamlet to Miss Havisham’s Ghost, before twenty thousand people, without knowing twenty words of it.

However, on 339 there is only this general reference to Pip’s dreams:

…for my nights had been agitated and my rest broken by fearful dreams…

What, then, are the other dreams which Claire Slagter identifies as evidence of Pip’s inner turmoil? I don’t have access to Slagter’s article, but my guess is that there are only four specific dreams, and that the fourth dream comes earlier in GE rather than later. Here is Pip, sleeping the night before he moves to London:

159:

All night there were coaches in my broken sleep, going to wrong places instead of to London, and having in the traces, now dogs, now cats, now pigs, now men,—never horses. Fantastic failures of journeys occupied me until the day dawned and the birds were singing.

If this is right, then the four dreams Dickens describes occur before Pip learns that Magwitch is his patron.

However, I think the motif of dreaming in GE is far more sophisticated than just these four references would suggest—indeed, the “inner turmoil” Slagter apparently discusses appears to be attached to another kind of emotional unrest.

Visit the Gutenberg e-text of Great Expectations and run your own search for “dream.” You should find 17 appearances of the word. I’ll list them in abbreviation here so you can survey their sweep of meaning:

1. My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality; Miss Havisham was going to make my fortune on a grand scale.
2. I acknowledged his attention incoherently, and began to think this was a dream.
3. But still I felt as if my eyes must start out of my head, and as if this must be a dream.
4. We sat in the dreamy room among the old strange influences which had so wrought upon me…
5. “a good fellow, with impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffidence, action and dreaming, curiously mixed in him.”
6. Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of Estella, and miserably dreamed that my expectations were all cancelled…
7. Miss Havisham’s intentions towards me, all a mere dream…
8. Then I washed and dressed while they knocked the furniture about and made a dust; and so, in a sort of dream or sleep-waking…
9. …my nights had been agitated and my rest broken by fearful dreams…
10. “I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night of his arrival.”
11. I had the wildest dreams concerning him, and woke unrefreshed…
12. I would tell him, little as he cared for such poor dreams, that I had loved Estella dearly and long…
13. “Pip,” said he, “we won’t talk about ‘poor dreams‘…”
14. “But add the case that you had loved her, Pip, and had made her the subject of those ‘poor dreams‘…”
15. I had never dreamed of Joe’s having paid the money…
16. But I had as sound a sleep in that lodging as in the most superior accommodation the Boar could have given me, and the quality of my dreams was about the same as in the best bedroom.
17. “But that poor dream, as I once used to call it, has all gone by…”

(You can find where these passages come from by looking them up on the Gutenberg text and then finding the nearest chapter marker.)

Citing Dickens

As your quote or paraphrase passages from Great Expectations, please be careful to cite the appropriate page number. Citations should be formatted in this way:

Sleeping for the first time at Satis House, Pip dreams that his expectations have evaporated and that he must, instead, marry Herbert Pocket’s betrothed Clara (258).

Note that the citation needs no further information—we know who the author is—and that it is fully contained within the sentence.

Some notes on Essay 3, Part 2

If your score for your imitation Jamaica Kincaid story is less than 20/25, it is almost certainly because of these two reasons:

• Your story was too literal
• Your tone was too direct

Here are some ways to avoid these problems your second time through:

• Reread “Girl” and “The Letter from Home” before you start revising your one-sentence story; get Kincaid’s tone and rhythm in your head.
• Ask of every word “Is this word necessary”? Must it be a black void, as one of you wrote? Or is it sufficient that it is a void?
• Bleed the specifics out of your story: no one in “Girl” or “Letter” has a name; settings are never mentioned, though they are alluded to.*
• Move the most important moments of the story to symbols: let images like a rower at sea or an indignant baker carry the weight of the plot.
• Write an iceberg. Never explain when you can imply.
• Don’t let the plot be the only thing in your story. In Kincaid’s stories, the plot simply serves as a way for Kincaid to make a more important argument—a critique of the methods by which Antiguan patriarchy spreads itself, say. Your story should be a vehicle for making an argument.
• Read your story out loud over and over again. Listen to its pacing. Start your story with quick clipped phrases, and only slowly build to more sophisticated ideas.
• Don’t overuse dialog: although back-and-forth appears in “Girl,” it does so only sparingly.

* I know that the essay prompt urges you to have a concrete setting for your story; however, there’s no rule that you must name that setting: Kincaid only ever implies hers, all the better to bolster the allegorical quality of her writing.

Some notes on Essay 3, Part 1

The structure for Essay 3 that I recommended in discussion this morning went like this (each number corresponds to a paragraph):

1. Thesis: Jamaica Kincaid’s main point in “Girl” or “The Letter from Home” is X—and think like Larry when you’re trying to find X: look for the 7/8ths of the iceberg that we can’t see above the surface of the story.
2. Symbol(s). Question: what nouns in Kincaid’s stories are freighted with extra meaning? Answer: almost every one. Don’t get bogged down thinking through the significance of every object: look for patterns of images the way Larry looked for patterns in the appearances of the moon in Jane Eyre. Pick the one or two symbols that advance your thesis: how do they help you prove that Kincaid meant X?
3. Theme: what big idea underlies the story? Think about the themes we’ve seen in Jane Eyre: independence, self-awareness, the power to read the world. These themes tie to symbols—the moon, true light, etc.—so you should be able to get to these themes by working through the symbols in the story you’ve chosen.
4. Structure: how does the main theme of the story shape itself? Where does it begin, when does it reach its climax, and how does it resolve or not resolve?
5. Meaning: why did Kincaid write this story? How do symbol, theme, and structure reveal the point that lies under the story itself?

Some important questions to ask yourself when you’re trying to crack the story:

• What’s up with the title of the story? Why is it “Girl” and not “Mother,” or “Slut”?
• Who is the speaker of the story, and how does Kincaid let you know who the speaker is?
• Who—in “The Letter from Home”—is the audience of the story? And how do we know? Why is the speaker writing to that audience?
• What is the speaker’s psychology? What do we learn about the speaker from how she or he tells the story?
• Why is the story written in one sentence? Why not use two sentences, or a thousand?
• How do tone and language change over the course of the story? What sort of development does this change suggest?

Sign-up sheet for office hours, 7/11

If you would like to change your scheduled time below, please just email me!

These office hours are so you can…

1. Pick up your first draft of Essay 3
2. Drop off a revised imitation Shakespearean sonnet
3. Discuss any assignments
4. …or anything else!

I solemnly promise to keep these office hours more on schedule than the sonnet recitations were! To this end, it would be great if you could write down all the questions you’d like to ask and the topics you’d like to discuss.

• 8:50 am – Adam
• 9:00 – Cydney
• 9:10 – Casey
• 9:20 – Chang
• 9:30 – Jack
• 9:40 – Ashanee
• 9:50 – Lorena
• 10:00 – Mariana
• 10:10 – Will
• 10:20 – Tenzin
• 10:30 – Casaundra
• 10:40 – Dulce
• 10:50 – Erick
• 11:00 – PaKou
• 11:10 – Edgardo
• 11:20 – Marina
• 11:30 – Arthur
• 11:40 – Kim

Jamaica Kincaid reads “Girl”

As you return to “Girl” for your second draft of Essay 3—unless, of course, you are writing on “The Letter from Home”—listen to this recording of Jamaica Kincaid reciting it. There’s no better way to approach a text anew than to hear it read aloud by someone with a carefully-turned interpretation.

Email from Larry: Prompt for essay #3

Because of conflicting directions on Essay #3 (two different handouts with two different approaches), please do the following: Use the directions for the second handout–see below

How to make the most of your Writing Fellow

Writing Fellows are upper-level students from all majors who have written oodles of essays and have been extensively trained in academic writing and revision. I’ve met and worked with Fellows a bunch of times, and have been consistently awestruck by their insight and thoughtfulness. Read more about them and their awesomeness here.

Remember, always, that the onus for writerly excellence lies on you: no matter how awe-inspiring, your Fellow isn’t the one pushing you forward—s/he is only helping you learn how to push yourself.

Be prepared when you meet your Fellow. Super prepared.

1. Think about your writing beforehand. Reread your first draft and my comments. Reread the Brooks article. Reread the speech you are analyzing. Outline a possible second draft.
2. Take your writing and the material you are writing on. Draft 1 with my notes, your outline of your second draft, the Brooks piece, the Bush speech, your notes from yesterday’s discussion, maybe a printout of blog posts on the topic.
3. Concentrate on analysis and argument. Grammar is only 10% of your essay grade, after all, and Larry’s two books spell out the rules and expectations for grammar.
4. Ask to focus on two or three issues. Look at my notes at the end of your draft. What do I say are the big things you should look at? Focus on those. Suggestion: thesis. Ask your Fellow, “How can I make an argument that says something new—that isn’t just a cookie cutter repetition of what Brooks writes?” Another suggestion: analysis. Ask your Fellow, “How can I make my analysis in this paper deeper, more precise, more nuanced?”
5. Listen. These Fellows have been around the block: when they suggest there is a better way to approach a problem or phrase an idea, listen to them. Take notes.