Assignments for Session 6: The West at the Turn of the Century

Name: Phạm Thùy Trang

Student’s ID: 1622205

“The Modern World: Self and Other in Global Context”

1. What are the prominent projects and movements in arts and literature emerging in the
twentieth century? What are the contexts for those projects and movements to develop?
Modernism: as the Industrial Revolution transformed social, economic, and political life faster, it
seemed, that such changes could peacefully be absorbed. Others saw it, more optimistically, as
an era in which a progressive Europe would lead the rest of the world to its own pinnacle of
achievement. In science, philosophy, social theory, and the arts, the nineteenth century prepared
both the evolution and the rebellion of the twentieth.
Existentialism: Westen philosophers have struggled systematically to understand the relationship
between appearance and reality. In the twentieth century, such issues are the central concern of
the philosophy known as phenomenology. It was a philosophic attempt to recover clear vision
and a basis for action in a perplexed and apparently meaningless world.

Woolf’s A Room for One’s Own

1. What are the main issues of women Virginia Woolf wants to raise and find solution in the
excerpted parts of her A Room for One’s Own?
- Sex discrimination: No women wrote a word of that extraordinary literature when every other
man, it seemed, was capable of song or sonnet… The indifference of the world which Keats and
Flaubert and other men of genius have found so hard to bear was in her case not indifference but
hostility. The world did not say to her as it said to them, Write if you choose; it makes no
difference to me. The world said with a guffaw, Write? What’s the good of your writing? Here
the psychologist of Newnham and Girton might come to our help.
- The huge disparity in the position of men and women in society: wife-beating was a recognised
right of man, and was practised without shame by high as well as low… Both Mr. Oscar and the
Saturday Review said that “essentials of a women’s being are that they are supported by, and
they minister to, men”.
- Sex assertion: Nick Greene said that women acting put him in mind of a dog dancing… ‘Sir, a
women’s composing is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are
surprised to find it done at all.’
- The lack of women's freedom and right to choose their own life: The daughter who refused to
marry the gentleman of her parents’ choice was liable to be locked up, beaten and flung about the
room, without any shock being inflicted on public opinion. Marriage was not an affair of
personal affection, but of family avarice, particularly in the ‘chivalrous’ upper classes.
- Financial dependence: In the first place, to have a room of her own, let alone a quiet room or a
sound-proof room, was out of the question, unless her parents were exceptionally rich or very
noble, even up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Since her pin money, which depended
on the goodwill of her father, was only enough to keep her clothed.

Kafka’s Metamorphosis
1. What time of the morning does Gregor Samsa get up and find that he is transformed into a
vermin?
It is six-thirty, almost a quarter to seven.
What is the weather in that morning?
It is foggy.
What does he do after that?
He decides to must be out of bed completely before the clock strikes seven-fifteen. He tries to
seesaw the full length of his body at an altogether even rhythm in order to rock it from the bed.
What does he think about his job at that time?
“Why oh why was Gregor condemned to working for a company where the slightest tardiness aroused the
murkiest suspicions? Was every last employee a scoundrel, wasn’t there a single loyal and dedicated
person among them, a man who, if he failed to devote even a few morning hours to the firm, would go
crazy with remorse, becoming absolutely incapable of leaving his bed? Wouldn’t it suffice to send an
office boy to inquire-if indeed this snooping were at all necessary? Did the office manager himself have
to come, did the entire innocent family have to be shown that this was the only person who had enough
brains to be entrusted with investigating this suspicious affair?”

2. What do the people (his family and his office manager) around him respond to this event?
The office manager blurts out a loud “Oh!”- it sounds like a whoosh of wind, then he presses his
hand to his open mouth and slowly shrinks back as if he is being ousted by some unseeable but
relentless force.
The mother first gapes at the father, clasps her hands, then takes two steps toward Gregor and
collapses, her petticoats flouncing out all around her and her face sinking quite undetectably into
her breasts.
The father clenches his fist, glaring at Gregor as if trying to shove him back into his room, then
peers unsteadily around the parlor before covering his eyes with his hands and weeping so hard
that his powerful chest begins to quake.

3. What is Samsa’s present job?

He is a traveling salesman.
What is his occupation previous to his present job?
He was in the military.

4. What is Samsa’s intention when the he sees the office manager wants to leave?
Gregor realizes he must on no account allow the office manager to leave in this frame of mind,
and he has to hold back, calm down and cajole the manager.

5. What is the first food Samsa sees since the time he gets transformed into a vermin?
It is a bowl full of fresh milk with tiny slices of white bread floating in it.

6. In his reminiscence, what does Samsa want to help his sister with her hobby when he starts
to earn enough money to cover the expenses for his whole family?
He is secretly planning to send his sister to the conservatory next year regardless of the great
expense that it is bound to entail and that would certainly be made up for in some other ways.

7. What street do Samsa and his family live on?

It is Charlotte street.

8. What happens on the day Samsa’s mother enters his room to visit him?
His mother and sister try to remove the furniture in his room. Samsa does not want that. He
wants everything to remain, so he tries to cover the picture so that it could not be carried off by
anyone. Unfortunately, the mother sees him-the huge brown splotch on the flowered wallpaper.
She cries out in a harsh, shrieking voice before actually realizing that this is Gregor and then she
faints.
What is his father’s reaction to Samsa when he comes back and witnesses the story?
He misinterprets Grete's all-too-brief statement and leaps to the conclusion that Gregor has
perpetrated some kind of violence. He completely believes that Gregor tends to attack his
mother, with no doubt.

9. What does Samsa’s family do after his death?

They kick three boarders out of their house and decide to spend that day resting and strolling.
And so they sit down at the table to write three letters of explanation. Then all three of them
leave the apartment together and take the trolley out to the countryside beyond the town.