AGENDA:
1. On Google Docs---Do Montana Prologue Exercise
2. Discussion of Montana readings
3. Turn in Grammar--Sentence Combining--
4. Work on study guide
5. HMWK: Read Part II--pg 102 for Thursday/ Finish book over break
1. Before you even begin reading, the novel story announces in its title the importance of its setting. What expectations are established with this title? What do you know about Montana, about 1948, about Montana in 1948? What do you know about novels and stories set in the West?
2. In the prologue, the narrator, David Hayden, explains a few things: how old he was when the story took place, how old he is now, and what has happened since. List this information, and then speculate: why, perhaps, is he telling the story now? What expectations does this establish for the story to come?
3. Also in the prologue, David offers a list of images. What do these images suggest? And what do you make of his insistence, on the following page, that these images, and others like them, be viewed simultaneously, not chronologically?
4. Lastly, David describes himself at the bottom of page 12 as "a witness." What does this word mean? List all its possible meanings.
5. On page 15, David introduces the setting promised in the title. What are the important facts, figures and details of this description? What kind of place is Mercer County?
6. On page 16, he describes that time in his life as "a new, blessedly peaceful era." How so? And how is this related to David's own age? (Why is 12 more peaceful than, say 10, or 15?)
7. On the same subject, what do we already know about Mercer County that tells us to be suspicious of this idyllic description?
8. The following pages are devoted to a description of David's father, in particular his job. In what ways does he defeat our expectations of the typical Western lawman?
9. Along the same lines, a great deal of time is devoted to a description his gun and holster. How does this encapsulate his failure to conform to our image--and David's image-- of a "typical" Western sheriff? How does Dave seem to feel about this?
10. The badge, too, gets some attention, and here David comments on something he later learned about it (page 19). What is the significance of his new, adult understanding of the reason his father never wore a badge?
11. On pages 19-21, we learn that the Hayden family is something of a dynasty in law enforcement. Later, on page 21, David describes his father as a man "who tried to turn two ways at once." Describe this conflict, including in your answer some thoughts on David's reference, in the same paragraph, to his "grandfather's domain."
12. A patriarch is a father figure, one who heads a family. A patriarchy is a society that is ruled by men. If the world of Mercer County is a patriarchy, what values are its principle values? What is the LAW?
13. On page 22, David lays out a second conflict. What is it?
14. Why is it significant that David and his family live "in the middle of town"? (page 23) What does this positioning suggest?
15. Comment intelligently on David's other life--his country life--at his grandfather's ranch. Is he, like his father, a man pulled two ways?
16. What do you make of the story of the toothless Indian woman on page 25? What does it show about Bentrock, and the general attitude of whites toward Indians? And how does this foreshadow the accusations later made against David's uncle?
17. On the following pages, 25 to 29, David descibes Marie Little Soldier and his feelings for her. Comment on two details: the incident, mentioned on 29, in which he accidentally sees her naked (what else in the story does David see that is naked?); and his remark on page 25 that "her body could be ready, at a moment's notice, for sex or work."
18. Why do you think David mentions his own encounter with chicken pox on page 28? Hint: he's speaking of a childhood disease, suffered as an adult.
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1. Stories set in the west are generally Cow Boy stories full of guns and horses and alcohol. Montana is a cold, boring, rocky place. Based on those two things, when I read the title I immediately assumed what the novel would be about and immediately decided that it would be boring; I was very wrong.
ReplyDelete2. My expectations of what this story would be about immediately changed when I read the prologue. With the scenes about Marie I assumed that this story would be about race relations and rights (which it partly is). I still expected the story to be boring, but then again, at least I was curious, why was David’s father begging David’s mother, and why was David’s mother holding a shotgun in the house?
3. These images all suggest death (Marie coughing) and conflict (The shotgun). I didn't really understand the prologue at all until I reread it after finishing the book. That was when each scene made sense, and that was when I realized that chronology was not the way these events should be presented. As David states clearly on the next page, “...the events that produced these sights and sounds are so rapid and tumbled together that andy chronological sequence seems wrong.” David is right, and only after looking back on the finished book can you see what he means. There is so little time between the fall of each domino that the time between the first one being pushed and the last one falling is seemingly instantaneous.
4. Witness:
Observer
Reporter
A person who is asked questions at a trial due to their relation to a crime.
David is certainly all of these things in the book.
5. Mercer County is near an Native American reservation. It gets very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. Unpaved roads. Small town. No prosperous ranches. Mediocre farmland. In my opinion, Mercer County has a disgusting landscape. Dusty and dry. I would hate it.
6. Firstly, this time of life was before the traumatic events to come that lost him his innocence and the glee that comes with being a child. David also states that “The exuberance of the war had faded but the relief had not.” They were basically in a sweet spot where people had regained their energy but had not lost their relief for the end of the war.
7. It is a dry, desolate, boring place. No matter how much energy the people had, that environment would douse it.
8. David’s father was supposed to be a reckless sheriff who is in to guns, beer, and breaking the law. Instead we find out that he should be a lawyer but his dick of a father expects him to be a sheriff like he was. His father never carries his gun or his badge and he is a completely sane person.
9. When David’s father does carry a gun it is low caliber. Never any pistols as david thought a proper Sheriff would use. David wants his father to be the cow boy, but he isn’t.
10. He realizes that the badges pin was thick and heavy and would have put large holes in his coat.
11. David’s grandfather passed the badge down to his son, David’s father, who was trying to get into law. David’s father had no choice but to accept. Wesley tried to turn toward David’s mother and David’s grandfather turned Wesley towards him and a job as a sheriff.
ReplyDelete12. In order to justify a patriarchy, there needs to be a reason. In this case it might be that women are mentally inferior (and idea that is obviously ludacris). Then in order to enforce that there might be a law or structure that limit’s women’s education or ability to get a good job.
13. David is socially awkward. He does not know how to act in society so he just watches other people for an example on how to act
14. He can go out and spend time outside whenever. He spent a lot of time outdoors.
15. David is an active kid. He enjoys nature. He is bad with social interactions. He is still a child. I do not feel that he is pulled in two directions. His grandfather will be dead before he can attempt to direct and destroy another man’s life.
16. We already know the extent of Wesley’s racism. Now we see that the whole of bentrock has similar feelings. When we later find out about uncle frank and what he does to Native women, we understand the social context in which a man might try to get away with it.
17. David also sees his aunt naked later. This remark gives us a sense of where David is in his life, and it also foreshadows the events to come.
18. He is using this to say how he never got sick as a child. You only ever get chicken pox once, and because he never got it as a child, he got it really bad when he did.
I was very fortunate to be able to visit your page.
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