Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner with Wai Chee Dimock - 18. Hemingway -- For Whom the Bell Tolls (continued)

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner (AMST 246) Professor Wai Chee Dimock focuses on the themes of dying and not dying that reappear throughout For Whom the Bell Tolls. Marshaling Elaine Scarry's argument on the aesthetics of killing, she reads the execution of the Fascists as a representation of both aesthetic and ethical "ugliness" in death. She then turns to a discussion of the tragic-comic dimensions of not dying as depicted in the bullfighter Finito's refusal to die and the smell of death emanating from the old women in the Madrid marketplace. She concludes with a reading of the word cobarde -- coward -- as it is applied to both Robert Jordan's suicidal father and the indomitable Pablo. Warning: This lecture contains graphic content and/or adult language that some viewers may find disturbing 00:00 - Chapter 1. The American Civil War as a Distant Home 06:08 - Chapter 2. Hemingway's Suicide 09:39 - Chapter 3. Varieties of Dying: The Execution of the Fascists 16:52 - Chapter 4. The Aesthetics of Killing 25:03 - Chapter 5. Varieties of Not Dying: The Death of Bullfighter Finito 29:37 - Chapter 6. Varities of Death: The Tragic-Comic Smell of Death 34:52 - Chapter 7. Varieties of Dying: The Tragic-Comic Rewriting of "The Earth Moved" 40:18 - Chapter 8. Varieties of Dying: Robert's Father as Cobarde 44:51 - Chapter 9. Varieties of Not Dying: Pablo as Cobarde Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://oyc.yale.edu This course was recorded in Fall 2011.