Extensive Reading Lessons

By: Mohammed OUAKLIM

The Allegory of the Cave

Summary:
Plato’s famous allegory of the cave, written around 380 BCE, is one of the most
important and influential passages of The Republic. It vividly illustrates the
concept of Idealism as it was taught in the Platonic Academy and provides a
metaphor which philosophers have used for millennia to help us overcome
superficiality and materialism. In this dialogue, Socrates (the main speaker) explains
to Plato’s brother, Glaukon, that we all resemble captives who are chained deep
within a cavern, who do not yet realize that there is more to reality than the
shadows they see against the wall.
Plato:
Greek philosopher (5th, BCE).
Teacher of Aristotle and student of Socrates.
Founder of the academy in Athens.
Philosophy: Epistemology – Metaphysics – Ethics.

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 Text levels:
Overt Chained shadows Cave Liberated Outside the Return (to save
level / prisoner / Fire prisoner cave / sun the others / slavers)
surface chains wall light
covered -predicament -sensible -visible -philosopher -intelligible -responsibility
level / of human world / world -educated world about the sciences
meaning beings unphysical -physical individual -realm of that he has
-culture -people world - real: truth / -educate others by
-media opinions autonomous ideas / philosopher and
-community -illusions learning justice / enlighten them
-traditional -justice -enlighten beauty -transmit the truth
-human -Ex: Prophet in
condition cave of Heraa

Themes:
1- Nature of reality / knowledge: Sensible world (illusion) and intelligible
(realm of truth).
2- The quest of knowledge: truth seeking is what makes us human being /
essence of humanity.
truth might be painful.
3- Significance of knowledge: transformative – eye opening – develop a
critical mindset – scrutinize – examine.
4- Role of philosopher / intellectual: enlighten – convincing – helping –
release from shackles.
5- breaking the prisoner chains can be done by: selective reading - traveling
(discovering new cultures) - companionship - following wise teachers (the
prophets) - willing to change.

Rhetorical devices:
1- Allegory: storytelling.
2- Dialogue: asymmetrical relationship between teacher and learner.
→ Socratic: using the Socratic method: series of questions preplanned.
→ Glaukon: short statement and conformations.

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 3- Imagery:
→ Making abstract ideas visible: chained prisoners –
→ Instigate / provokes / triggers feeling of: pity / fear / irritation / anger.
4- Questions: rhetorical question.
5- symbols:
→ the eyes = the soul and mind.
→ the light = the truth.
→ darkness = ignorance.
6- Diction: the choice of words deductive and explanatory:
→ “Look and you will also see other people”.
→ “Now, tell me if you suppose it’s possible”.
7- tone of the text: didactic / educational – affirmative.
8- Socratic method: most using logic in the text.

The Boarding House

James Joyce

Summary:
“The Boarding House” is a story about the fallout from an affair between a
young woman, Polly, and a man, Mr. Doran, in early 20th-century Dublin. Mr.
Doran is a lodger in the boarding house run by Polly’s mother, Mrs. Mooney.
Mrs. Mooney, who has been separated from her abusive alcoholic husband ever
since he tried to kill her with a cleaver, runs a boarding house occupied by music-
hall performers, tourists, and a number of young Dublin clerks. Her daughter,
Polly, worked briefly as a typist and now labors as a housekeeper at home. When
Polly becomes involved with one of the boarders, a clerk in his mid-thirties named
Mr. Doran, Mrs. Mooney does not interfere.
Instead, she allows the affair to continue until other lodgers at the house have
observed it. Then she insists that Doran marry her daughter. Doran already feels
guilty, thanks to a meeting with his priest the night before, and he is worried that
his employer will get wind of the affair. Also, he is concerned that Polly might try

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to "put an end to herself," and he fears the wrath of Polly's brother Jack. Despite
the fact that he does not love her, and that his family will look down on the
marriage because the Mooney belong to an inferior social class, Doran agrees to
wed Polly.

Analysis:
In “The Boarding House”, marriage offers promise and profit on the one hand,
and entrapment and loss on the other. What begins as a simple affair becomes a
tactical game of obligation and reparation. Mrs. Mooney’s and Mr. Doran’s
propositions and hesitations suggest that marriage is more about social standards,
public perception, and formal sanctions than about mere feelings. The character
of Mrs. Mooney illustrates the challenges that a single mother of a daughter faces,
but her scheme to marry Polly into a higher class mitigates any sympathetic
response from the reader. Mrs. Mooney may have endured a difficult marriage and
separation, but she now carries the dubious title of “The Madam,” a term
suggestive of her scrupulous managing of the house, but also of the head of
whorehouse. Mrs. Mooney does, in fact, prostitute her daughter to some degree.
She insists that Polly leave her office job and stay at home at the boarding house,
in part so she might entertain, however innocently, the male lodgers. When a
relationship blossoms, Mrs. Mooney tracks it until the most profitable moment—
until she is sure Mr. Doran, a successful clerk, must propose to Polly out of social
propriety. Mrs. Mooney justly insists that men should carry the same responsibility
as women in these casual love affairs, but at the same time prides herself on her
ability to rid herself of a dependent daughter so easily.
Mr. Doran agonizes about the limitations and loss of respect that marrying
beneath him will bring, but he ultimately relents out of fear of social critique from
his priest, his employer, Mrs. Mooney, and Polly’s violent brother. When Polly
visits him in distress he feels as helpless as she does, even though he tells her not to
worry. He goes through the motions of what society expects of him, not according
to what he intuitively feels. When he descends the stairs to meet with Mrs.
Mooney, he yearns to escape but knows no one is on his side. The “force” that
pushes him down the stairs is a force of anxiety about what others will think of

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him. While Mr. Doran’s victimization by Mrs. Mooney evokes pity, his self-
concern and harsh complaints about Polly’s unpolished background and manner
of speaking make him an equal counterpart to Mrs. Mooney. He worries little
about Polly’s integrity or feelings, and instead considers his years of hard work and
good reputation now verging on destruction.
As a place where “everyone knows everyone else’s business”, the boarding
house serves as a microcosm of Dublin. Various classes mix under its roof, but
relationships are gauged and watched, class lines are constantly negotiated, and
social standing must override emotions like love. The inhabitants are not free to
do what they choose because unstated rules of decorum govern life in the house,
just as they do in the city. Such rules maintain order, but they also ensnare people
in awkward situations when they have competing and secret interests. Even the
seemingly innocent Polly ultimately appears complicit in Mrs. Mooney’s plot.
After threatening to kill herself in despair, she suddenly appears happy and
unbothered about the dilemma when she is left alone, and she knows Mr. Doran
will comply with Mrs. Mooney’s wishes. In “The Boarding House,” marriage
serves as a fixture of life that Dubliners cannot avoid, and the story shows that
strategy and acceptance are the only means of survival.

Sketch the Characters:

Mrs. Mooney:
Though Mrs. Mooney avoided her husband's meat cleaver, it makes little
difference, as she is spiritually dead.
It is no coincidence that the story's narrator refers to her as "the Madame." Like
the proprietress of a whorehouse, she hopes to earn money from the young
woman living under her roof and thus gives Polly "the run of the young men"
there.
Character traits: protagonist – main character – round character – complex –
manager of the boarding house – head of a small family – shrowd – determined –
pragmatic – experienced - takes matters into her own heads.
Problematic:
Madam: → lady. used as a form of respectful or polite address to a woman.
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 → the proprietress of a whorehouse.
Morally: → strict, uncompromising.
→ dubious, complicity with daughter turns blind eye,
encouraged implicitness.

Ms. Polly:
ventures forth — to her typist's job at the corn-factor's — only to return home
without having achieved the object of her quest. Which is a life independent of
her mother.
Character traits: protagonist – main character – young (19) – beautiful – vivid
– likes live – full in love – playful – naïve – innocent – not literate – not educated.
Problematic:
→ is she sinful or angelic (innocent)?
→ is she innocent or temptress (Song / late night visit)?

Mr. Doran:
Though over thirty years old (35), he seems to have made little forward progress
in life, and he will make even less as Mrs. Mooney's son-in-law. Somehow
hobbled until now, frozen at present with fear of Jack Mooney, he will be from
this day on genuinely paralyzed — as paralyzed as Polly, her mother, and so many
Dubliners characters before and after them.
Character traits: protagonist – main character – stranger for the place – exile
– financial states (clerk, salary) – serious (not promiscuous, not playful) – religious
(visiting the church) – negative attitude to marriage – scared for violence Jack and
losing his job and scandalized.
Problematic:
→ is he a victim or a perpetrator? Free choice or he is forced / mocked?
→ marry or not? Marrying down or marrying up?

Themes:
Marriage:
1- Marriage and social classes:

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 - Marrying down: people who’s not in same level.
- Social mobility is possible but not in this kind of society.
- Mrs. Mooney do not want to repeat the same mistake as she married her
father assistant who is not in same level.
2- Marriage as a profitable business gambling or as an insurance company: →
win / counting cards / economic transaction.
3- Marriage consequence of: genuine love / passing whim.
4- Psychological pressure mothers and girls.

Religion:
1- Paradox:
→ Religion source of negative feelings: pain – guilt – torment.
→ Religion source of liberty: solace – holiness.
2- Suffocating presence / tyrannical presence of religion: overwhelming –
control of private life – church – divorce – confession.
3- Religion: hypocrisy.

Individual VS Society:
1- Individual is a victim of society: no agency – stigmatized – under strictures –
social convention.
2- Morality: rigid – relative – progressive – conservative – youth – atheists –
paralysis.
3- Individual in the story: → unemployment → violence (Jack) → ridicule
stigmatization.

Learning to Read
Malcom X

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 Summary:
Born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, Malcolm X was one of the most
articulate and powerful leaders of black America during the 1960s. A street hustler
convicted of robbery in1946, he spent seven years in prison, where he educated
himself and became a disciple of Elijah Muhammad, founder of the Nation of
Islam. In the days of the civil rights movement, Malcolm X emerged as the leading
spokesman for black separatism, a philosophy that urged black Americans to cut
political, social, and economic ties with the white community. After a pilgrimage
to Mecca, the capital of the Muslim world, in1964, he became an orthodox
Muslim, adopted the Muslim name El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, and distanced
himself from the teachings of the black Muslims. He was assassinated in 1965. In
the following excerpt from his autobiography (1965), coauthored with Alex Haley
and published the year of his death, Malcolm X describes his self-education.
Malcolm X was a very influential and power speaker during the civil rights
movement. He self-taught himself to articulate his feelings through writing in a
prison with very few and efficient materials. Learning to read and write, an excerpt
from Malcolm X’s larger autobiography, recounts his experience of this
momentous journey of intellectual discovery and lists his motivation for learning
as well as his thoughts and feelings, as he created his own method of learning using
the dictionary, and a few tablets along with a pencil provided by the prison in a
dark dimly lit cell.

Themes:
- Self education: Malcolm X, referred to often as one of the most articulate
African Americans civil rights activist, ironically became literate due to his own
drive. It’s almost impossible to imagine a human being taking such a task that is
the primary duty of numerous institutions such as schools, early learning centers
and even churches in some cases, upon themselves. Reading Malcolm X’s excerpt
allow us to understand how and why such a task had to be undertook.
- Learning is liberating:
“I never had been so truly free in my life”.
- Reading opens new worlds:

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 “I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me”, “Every
day now, the truth is coming to light”.
- Worthwhile education:
devotion, determination, perseverance: are key of education.
historical awareness is a condition to self-knowledge
- The purpose of story:
Educate yourself.
Defend about black people/ help them.

Comparison:
Academic Education Homemade/Self Education
1 Buildings Not place/time bound
2 Mentor On one's own
3 Syllabus, orientation Error and trial: self-dictionary
4 Degree Knowledge
5 Competition, marks, feedback Self-motivation
6 Accessible, easier Hard, difficult
7 Faster Slow painstaking but rewarding

Rhetorical literary devices:

- Structure: personal, public, historical
- Rhetorical: narration juxtapose argumentation
→ Narration: sharing experience, connect with reader.
→ Argumentation: logos, ethos, pathos.
Logos: historical evidence, books.
Pathos: enraged tone, emotion describing.
Ethos: well read, autobiography, titles of books.
- Comparison:
The Allegory of the Cave → logos
Learning to Read → logos + pathos + ethos