1. Is the man a good husband? Cite textual evidence to support your view.
2. Is the man a racist? Cite textual evidence to support your view.
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Tobias Wolff (1945-)
His Works
Short stories (O Henry Award): • “In the Garden of the North
American Martyrs” (1981) • “Next Door” (1982) • “Sister” (1985) • Our Story Begins (short story
boy; traveled widely with his mother; soon forced to endure life under his strict and cruel stepfather.
• From 1964 to 1968, lieutenant with the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) in Vietnam.
Ku Klux Klan
• Ku Klux Klan also known as KKK: a secret white supremacist organization at various times in American history terrorized blacks and white sympathizers with violent acts of lynching, shootings and whippings.
• Strategy: public rallies and protests
Ideology: some Christian fundamentalist beliefs, Christian Identity, white supremacy
• Financial support: little
• Founded: 1866
• Founder: Confederate Civil War veterans
• Headquarters: Powderly, Kentucky; Butler,
Texas
Indiana; Jasper,
• Background: The Klan has fragmented into
the pages
blur out
the right answer
come up with
the stars
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Mark the following statements T, for true and F for false.
F
1. The story is set in the 1960s in the US when racial issues were hot on everybody’s mind and lips.
• Overt and subtle racism: The Civil Rights Movement did away much overt racism, but racism persists in many subtle forms, in many aspects and on many levels.
scores of competing factions. Most of these
are nominally independent.
• Estimated size: no more than a few thousand,
• Media: mass mailings, leaflets and the Internet
• With the enactment of Congressional legislation and enforcement of the law by the federal government, the
much as possible. • Think about the themes of the story and form your
own opinions.
The Author Hi s Life
• Born in Alabama USA in 1945. • Parents divorced when he was a
T 2. The story happened between two middle-aged people
who had been married for about 30 years.
T 3. The man had never thought that he was a racist and felt
Match the verbs with the nouns.
pitch in on
this trick
pinch
the housework
resort to
the silverware
mop
the floor
spray
her brows
snap through
her indifference
demonstrate
into their house and made some strange noise.
Objectives
• Know something about the author and his works. • Gather some background information about racism
This Boy’s Life Film Poster
His Style
• A direct writing style, obeying the “show, don’t tell” maxim, leaving much to the reader’s intuition
• Non-dramatic, focusing more on the psychological dimensions of a character in dilemmas than on plot development
collection in 2003, The Story Prize in 2004) Memoirs: • This Boy’s Life: A Memoir (1989) • In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War(1994) Novels: • The Barrack's Thief (1984, PEN/Faukner Award for Fiction) • Old School (2003)
Say Yes
Tobias Wolff
• What kinds of person you would like to marry? Have you ever thought of marrying a foreigner or a black person?
Questions / Activities
• Institutional racism: e.g. the Jim Crow laws in the US from 1876 to 1965 mandating segregation in all public facilities in the southern states of the former Confederacy with a supposedly “separate but equal” status for the black Americans; officially overruled with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
greatly wronged by his wife who implied this.
F 4. The man was considerate, rational and forgiving while his
wife was selfish, emotional and ridiculous.
• Hoping to instruct and inspire people to triumph over their situations through character change and development
Culture Tips
Racism
• Definition: Racism is prejudice or discrimination based on the belief that race is the primary factor determining human traits and abilities. Racism includes the belief that genetic or inherited differences produce the inherent superiority or inferiority of one race over another.
• Targeting those set free after the American Civil War—the African Americans, KKK designed to spread fear throughout the Black population that still lived in the southern states. The most hatred was directed against the poor black families in the south who were very vulnerable to attack.