Monday+12-29

(Be sure to click on the "discussion" link to post your comments.)

Address any of the following questions. After making your first post, check back in the next few days and make a second post where you respond to a classmate's post. Feel free to post as many comments as you like, so long as you maintain respect for each other and introduce new ideas!

- React to the final scenes with Joe Brown/Lucas Birch. How is the action classically comic, almost slapstick? In what ways is Byron heroic? - Comment on the juxtaposition of chapters 18 and 19, the dramatic shift in tone and style.

- Discuss your reactions to Joe C's final days and the events leading up to his death. Do you think Faulkner made good decisions for how to end Joe's life, considering the way he created and developed the character? Note how he uses the motifs of time, nature, and shoes. What scenes or images echo from previous places in the book?

- What roles do the other characters play in Joe's death? Discuss Faulkner's use of Gavin Stevens as a narrator.

- Look at the death scene, specifically, and comment on the imagery and diction in that final moment. How does Faulkner suggest we are to view this death? What ties are we to see to the Crucifixion -- and what are some profound ironies related to this comparison?