Category: English 20

from WILD GEESE

The story is set in the 1920s. Judith (Jude) Gare, who is 17 years old, has a passionate and rebellious spirit. Her overbearing father, Caleb, seeks to control Judith through the relentless demands of farm work. Caleb’s tyranny intimidates Judith’s mother, Amelia, as well as Judith’s submissive older sister, Ellen. Lind Archer, a young woman who has come to teach in the local school, boards with the Gares. Sven Sandbo is Judith’s sweetheart.

For the rest of the day, Judith’s hands were of no use to her, so she slipped away with her dog, Pete, through the bush to a little ravine where a pool had gathered below the thread of a spring. Pete caught a scent and was off, and Judith was left alone.

It was clingingly warm, as before rain. Not knowing fully what she was doing, Judith took off all her clothing and lay flat on the damp ground with the waxy feeling of new sunless vegetation under her. She needed to escape, to fly from something – she knew not what. Caleb . . . Ellen . . . the farm the hot reek of manure in the stable when it was close as today. Life was smothering, overwhelming her, like a pillow pressed against her face, like a feather tick[quilt] pinning down her body.

She would have struck Caleb today had it not been for Amelia. Always pity stood in the way of the tide of violence she felt could break from her. Pity for Amelia, who would get what Caleb did not dare mete out to her, Judith.

Oh, how knowing the bare earth was, as if it might have a heart and a mind hidden here in the woods. The fields that Caleb had tilled had no tenderness, she knew. But here was something forbiddingly beautiful, secret as one’s own body. And there was something beyond this. She could feel it in the freeness of the air, in the depth of the earth. Under the body there were, she had been taught, eight thousand miles of earth. On the other side, what? Above her body there were leagues and leagues of air, leading like wings – to what? The marvelous confusion and complexity of all the world had singled her out from the rest of the Gares. She was no longer one of them. Lind Archer had come and her delicate fingers had sprung a secret lock in Jude’s being. She had opened like a tight bud. There was no going back now into the darkness.

Sven Sandbo, he would be home in May, so they said. Was it Sven she wanted, now that she was so strangely free? Judith looked straight about her through the network of white birch and saw the bulbous white country that a cloud made against the blue. Something beyond Sven, perhaps . . . freedom, freedom. She dipped her blistered hands down into the clear topaz of the pool, lifted them and dipped them and lifted them, letting the drops slip off the tips of her fingers each time like tiny cups of light. She thought of the Teacher, of her dainty hands and her soft, laughing eyes . . . she came from another life, another world. She would go back there again. Her hands would never be maps of rope-blisters and Jude’s were now, from tugging a calf out of a mudhole. Jude hid her hands behind her and pressed herself against the cold ground. Hard, senseless sobs rose in her throat, and her eyes smarted with tears. She was ugly beyond all bearing, and all her life was ugly. Suddenly she was bursting with hatred of Caleb. Her large, strong body lay rigid on the ground, and was suddenly unnatural in that earthy place.

Martha Ostenso
1900-1963

ASSIGNMENT

Literature often describes some aspect of the human desire to escape. An individual may desire escape from physical, social, emotional, or psychological circumstances. Whether the individual responds actively or passively to that desire affects the course of his or her life.

In this excerpt from the novel Wild Geese, Martha Ostenso uses descriptive details to convey to the reader a sense of Jude’s longing to escape.

What idea(s) does Martha Ostenso develop regarding the desire to escape? Develop your essay by providing specific supporting details from Wild Geese.

•FOCUS your essay on your controlling idea regarding escape. Provide only those details that develop and support your controlling idea.

•ORGANIZE your essay so that your ideas are clearly and coherently developed.

In Canadian literature the family is handled quite differently. If in England the family is a mansion you live in, and if in America it’s a skin you shed, then in Canada it’s a trap in which you’re caught. The Canadian protagonist often feels just as trapped inside his family as his American counterpart; he feels the need for escape, but somehow he is unable to break away.

Families in Canadian fiction huddle together like sheep in a storm or chickens in a coop: miserable and crowded, but unwilling to leave because the alternative is seen as cold empty space.

Grandparents are not necessarily settlers, . . .instead of pitting their force of will against the land– that’s been done for them by their ancestors – they pit it against other people, most notably their descendants.

Parents lack the will, the attachment to the land and the metallic strength of their parents, but they have been unable to replace it by anything more positive and attractive.

Children try to escape both previous generations. They desire neither the Calvinism and commitment to the land of the Grandparents, nor the grey placelessness and undefined guilt of the parents. They want, somehow, to live, but they have trouble finding a way to do this. They sometimes feel a double pull – back to the tough values and the land, like the Grandparents, or away – farther away than the parents managed to get. –Margaret Atwood, Survival.

Atwood, in Survival, presents arguments on several thematic developments in Canadian literature. In this section of her book she discusses the Canadian author’s treatment of family relationships. Many authors are included in her analysis, including Margaret Laurence, Hugh MacLennan, Tom Wayman, Mavis Gallant, and George Bowering. However, Margaret Atwood makes no direct mention of Martha Ostenso in Survival.

Compare and contrast the themes developed in Martha Ostenso’s Wild Geese with the above statements by Margaret Atwood. Why should, or should not, Atwood’s chapter on family relationships include reference(s) to Wild Geese?

ELA 20-2
Advice to a Panicky Friend
One of your friends has shared some of his/her problems with you. Your friend wants advice on how to handle these difficulties because things seem to be going from bad to worse. In fact, your friend is becoming panicky. Write a post/comment/letter to your friend, giving both your advice on how to relieve the panic and your suggestions about how to proceed next. In the opening paragraph, identify the problem and make sure it is serious enough to warrant such a response from you.

Tip: Maybe your friend is suffering from a lack of sleep.

ELA 20-1
A Dark Time
Each of us probably has experienced a “dark” time in our lives when events or relationships were not going well. In a post, identify that dark period and comment on your feelings (ie. depression, frustration).

Tip: Create a stream of consciousness narrative.

Extra:
Include a phrase or idea from William James somewhere in your narrative or letter.

Read and consider carefully the short story, “An Ounce of Cure” by Alice Munro from the text, The Story Begins When the Story Ends : Canadian and World Short Fiction.

Select one of the following critical ideas as your focus and write an essay in which you discuss the ideas developed by the author.

1. Doubt and Fear
2. Human Relationships
3. Life Pressures
4. Consequences
5. Identity and Sense of Self
6. Gender Inequality
7. Perceptions: Judging and Misjudging People and Their Actions

Hint: Be sure to take into account 9-25 particular details from the story to develop your argument. Your essay should be in the form of a Five Paragraph Essay