There has been an extensive online discussion, among those who have
participated, about Graham Greene's "The Second Death" on the
various forums. It's important to remember that the point of this
isn't so much to understand and respond appropriately to Greene's
story, but to become more conscious of the ways in which what we
bring to the story, and how we decide what's relevant to the story,
change and affect what we understand any story -- indeed, any text
-- to be about and how we respond to and value it.
But it's also true that the urge to understand is central. We can
think of that urge as a sort of act of faith which says that
if someone's telling us this she probably means something by it,
intends us to understand, and is trying to provide the information
and connections to make it possible to understand.
It's possible to see that urge at work in many of the responses to
the reading and inksheds about the responses. Many people are not
yet satisfied that the story all makes sense to them -- and so I
want to take a few minutes at the beginning of class today to do
what we can to arrive at a shared view of what we think Graham
Greene probably had in mind for his readers as he wrote the story
(and of who those readers were: one thing I think is clear is that
those readers were not us).
So, to begin, on the form you'll have,
write one or two questions you still have about the story and the
way we've read it. Make them questions that are as specific as
possible, and questions we might actually answer, and questions
you'd actually like to have answered. When you're done I'll set up
quickly some groups of five or so; read each other's questions and
decide on one or two you think most immediate, and we'll discuss
them. I'll also put up on the screen a selection of the final
inksheds on the introduction of the Bible verses and suggest some
things to notice.
Some new information
When we've done that, I have some new
information about the story that I think is surprising (I
discovered it while trying to see how much had been written about
the story, and whether it was possible for us to do some research
about it, and it was a surprise to me).
Finishing the term
The next prompt will make clear (I hope)
what needs to be done to finish up the work of the term.