ENGL 122 Mesa Community College Postmodernism Keat Concept of Beauty Essay Background: The paper is an opportunity to explore a particular aspect of the m
ENGL 122 Mesa Community College Postmodernism Keat Concept of Beauty Essay Background:
The paper is an opportunity to explore a particular aspect of the material we are looking at this semester in significantly greater detail than is possible within a given module. You should choose an aspect of the course that appeals to you and then fashion a crisp and coherent essay that conveys a clear argument and is well supported by material from the text(s).
Your essay should adopt a particular position and then argue in favor of it. It should not be a generalized discussion of the topic. Read the text(s) closely, work out what you think the author(s) is/are doing, and then explain your position. Be clear before you start on the final draft about what you are arguing, and then make the best case you can for it.
Prompt & Tasks:
A good way to think about this assignment is to ask a critical question of one or more texts and answer the question(s) in a sustained argumentative essay. Your thesis statement, then, should be a concise answer to your critical question and the body of the essay will serve to prove/support your thesis using textual evidence
You will also need to include some discussion about an applicable literary theory that we have studied so far: Marxism, feminism, New Criticism, Gender Studies, Post colonialism, New Historicism, or Ethnic Studies. Specifically, how does one or more of these theories contribute to your interpretation of the text and answer to your critical question?
You should also have some relevant discussion of the literary genre of your chosen texts. So far, we have covered: Romanticism, Gothicism, Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. How do your texts align with the tenets of one or more of these eras/genres? How does the genre contribute to your interpretation of the text and answer to your critical question?
Notes:
o You CAN USE a critical question from one of your Critical Response Papers if you’d like! You CAN USE any of your OWN reading activities for this paper. Your peers’ work,
however, is off limits.
o For every essay project assignment that is not passing or not submitted by the end of the term, the course grade will lower one letter.
Critical questions (choose one of these or create your own!):
•Choose one or two applications of confinement (physical space, fate, gender, age, class, race, sickness, madness, etc.) and explain how one or more texts exemplify confinement. How does the theme of confinement influence your reading of the text(s)?
•How do writers like Gilman and Dickinson and/or others conceptualize madness? How closely is it related to sanity? Can mad people teach us anything?
•What does Hawthorne’s conceptions of beauty teach his readers? Do the lessons change depending on whether the reader is contemporary or modern?
•Pick 2 or more characters from the first half of the semester. Are they sympathetic or not? In answering this question, explain why viewing a character as (un)sympathetic influences your reading of the text(s).
•What role does narration play in one or more of our texts? How does the narration influence your interpretation of the text(s)?
•What does one or more of authors teach us about women’s issues? Women’s rights? Perhaps consider how one or more of our authors discuss female empowerment and what implications this discussion has on their readers.
•How do Keats and Wordsworth define beauty? How do these authors differ in their understanding of Truth and Beauty from previous literary eras?
•What is Rebecca Harding Davis’s larger message about the human condition? What is she aiming to teach her readers through her characters Deb and Hugh?
•You are also welcome to devise your own essay topic. If you choose to do this, you need to submit your question to me for approval. In general, it should deal with a clearly-defined issue and respond to a clear critical question or questions.
A successful paper will:
•Explain your interpretation of one or more of the texts in a clear and thorough manner.
•Explain how you arrived at your interpretation using textual evidence and close reading to support your points.
•Have a debatable, arguable thesis statement at the end of the introduction which is original and contains your interpretation of the text(s).
•Include thoughtful discussion of at least one literary era/genre and at least one literary theory and explain how your interpretation is shaped by both the era and theory.
•AVOID simply summarizing the text(s).
•AVOID simply paraphrasing when using textual evidence.
•Use textual evidence to support your points and include sufficient ANALYSIS of the quotations used. Do not simply drop a quotation in your essay just for the sake of using the quotation. Make the quotations WORK FOR YOU.
•Have a CREATIVE title for your essay but do not bold, italicize, or use a different font for the title.
•Remember: the grade is assigned after the final paragraph. Don’t tail off at the end of your paper. Give yourself enough time to finish with a flourish.
•Adhere to MLA guide line
olast name and page number on the upper right-hand corner of each page, double space, 12 point Times New Roman font, one-inch margins, no extra space between paragraphs, follow in-text citation guidelines
oInclude proper header format in the upper left-hand corner of the first page:
Jane Smith (name)
Brianna Kuhn (professor)
English 122
(class number)
12 April 2020
(Due date in this format)
•Include a Works Cited page.
•Cite all in-text quotes in the following format: “quote” (author’s last name page number). Please note there is no comma or “p” or “pg” or paragraph number in the parenthesis and there is no punctuation before the citation (except if the quote includes a question mark or exclamation point), and the period goes after the end of the citation.
•Example: “like a raw wind that gets to the bone” (Glaspell 4).
•Be 4-6 pages in length.
Unsuccessful Thesis Statement: Too general, no interpretation provided
This essay will discuss how Anne Bradstreet and John Keats handle the topics of death and sickness.
Still Unsuccessful…Too general, no precise interpretation described
Anne Bradstreet and John Keats discuss sickness and death in similar ways.
Successful Thesis Statement: Specific, precise, describes clear interpretation
Despite being glaringly different authors, Anne Bradstreet and John Keats depict sickness and death in nearly identical ways and teach their respective audiences about the dangers of being confined to their respective time period, gender, and class.
Essay 1 Outline
I. Intro: a. Context of your chosen topic (madness, women, empowerment, children, death,race, etc)
b. Introduce the text(s) you will talk about. Include author’s name, title of the text, year it was written, and a short statement of the text’s argument.
c. Your thesis: here, you will have an argument. A good way to think about this assignment is to ask a critical question of one or more texts and answer the question(s) in a sustained argumentative essay. Your thesis statement, then, should be a concise answer to your critical question and the body of the essay will serve to prove/support your thesis using textual evidence.
II.Textual Analysis Body Paragraphs:
a. Assertion: this will be a topic sentence defining the first reason to support your thesis.
b. Evidence: pull a quote to illustrate your topic sentence
c. Explain: explain the quote in your own words using close reading skills (define some words in the quote and explain how you arrived at your interpretation of the quote)
d. Significance: explain how the quote supports the assertion and your overall thesis statement
I. In the significance section of each body paragraph, you could explain how the literary theory and/or genre contribute to your interpretation of the text(s) and answer your critical question/support your thesis. With this approach, you will need a quote for the theory/genre material and a discussion of how the quote illustrates the theory/genre
e. NOTE: If you have more than one quote in a paragraph, the order of your paragraph will be Assertion, Evidence 1, Explanation 1, Evidence 2, Explanation 2, Significance)
i.***Copy and paste this body paragraph structure for each textual analysis paragraph you have in your essay***
III. Literary Theory/Genre Body Paragraphs: Here, if you choose not to discuss genre and theory in the previous body paragraphs, you may choose instead to have entire body paragraphs dedicated to that purpose. You could have this section at the beginning or end of your essay. In that case, here is what it would look like:
a. Assertion: this would be a statement of how the genre/theory helps you to interpret the text(s)
b. Evidence: include a quote from the genre/theory material to illustrate your assertion
c. Explain: explain the quote in your own words and explain how the quote illustrates the genre/theory
d. Significance: discuss how the theory/genre helps to support your overall thesis—specifically, how does the genre/theory help you to interpret the overall text(s)?
e. NOTE: If you have more than one quote in a paragraph, the order of your paragraph will be Assertion, Evidence 1, Explanation 1, Evidence 2, Explanation 2, Significance)
i.***Copy and paste this body paragraph structure for each literary theory/genre paragraph you have in your essay***
IV. Conclusion: This will be a statement of the significance of your argument. What will your readers gain from reading your paper? How would you like them to think differently, or what would you like them to do with the information you presented?
SOURCES:
I PUT THE DUTCHMAN ARTICLE IN THE FILES ATTACHED BELOW Dutchman
Amiri Baraka
1964
CHARACTERS
CLAY, twenty‐year‐old Negro
LULA, thirty‐year‐old white woman
RIDERS OF COACH, white and black YOUNG NEGRO
CONDUCTOR
In the flying underbelly of the city Steaming hot, and summer on top, outside. Underground. The subway heaped
in modern myth.
Opening scene is a man sitting in a subway seat, holding a magazine but looking vacantly just above its wilting
pages. Occasionally he looks blankly toward the window on his right. Dim lights and darkness whistling by
against the glass. (Or paste the lights, as admitted props, right on the subway windows. Have them move, even
dim and flicker. But give the sense of speed. Also stations, whether the train is stopped or the glitter and activity
of these stations merely flashes by the windows.)
The man is sitting alone. That is, only his seat is visible, though the rest of the car is outfitted as a complete
subway car. But only his seat is shown. There might be, for a time, as the play begins, a loud scream of the actual
train. And it can recur throughout the play, or continue on a lower key once the dialogue starts.
The train slaws after a time, pulling to a brief stop at one of the stations. The man looks idly up, until he sees a
woman’s face staring at him through the window; when it realizes that the man has noticed the face, it begins
very premeditatedly to smile. The man smiles too, for a moment, without a trace of selfconsciousness. Almost an
instinctive though undesirable response. Then a kind of awkwardness or embarrassment sets in, and the man
makes to look away, is further embarrassed, so he brings back his eyes to where the face was, but by naw the
train is moving again, and the face would seem to be left behind by the way the man turns his head to look back
through the other windows at the slowly fading platform. He smiles then; more comfortably confident, hoping
perhaps that his memory of this brief encounter will be pleasant. And then he is idle again.
Scene I
Train roars. Lights flash outside the windows.
LULA enters from the rear of the car in bright, skimpy summer clothes and sandals. She carries a net bag
full of paper books, fruit, and other anonymous articles. She is wearing sunglasses, which she pushes up on
her forehead from time to time. LULA is a tall, slender, beautiful woman with long red hair hanging
straight down her back, wearing only loud lipstick in some body’s good taste. She is eating an apple, very
daintily. Coming down the car toward CLAY. She stops beside CLAY’S seat and hangs languidly from the
strap, still managing to eat the apple. It is apparent that she is going to sit in the seat next to CLAY, and
that she is only waiting for him to notice her before she sits.
CLAY sits as before, looking just beyond his magazine, now and again pulling the magazine slowly back and
forth in front of his face in a hopeless effort to fan himself. Then he sees the woman hanging there beside
him and he looks up into her face, smiling quizzically.
LULA Hello.
CLAY Uh, hi’re you?
LULA I’m going to sit down …. O.K.?
CLAY Sure.
LULA [Swings down onto the seat, pushing ‘her legs straight out as if she is very weary] Oooof! Too much
weight.
CLAY Ha, doesn’t look like much to me. [Leaning back against the window, a little surprised and maybe stiff]
LULA It’s so anyway. [And she moves her toes in the sandals, then pulls her right leg up on the left knee, better to
inspect the bottoms of the sandals and the back of her heel. She appears for a second not to notice that
CLAY is sitting next to her or that she has spoken to him just a second before. CLAY looks at the magazine,
then out the black window. As he does this, she turns very quickly toward him] Weren’t you staring at me
through the window?
CLAY [Wheeling around and very much stiffened] What?
LULA Weren’t you staring at me through the window? At the last stop?
CLAY Staring at you? What do you mean?
LULA Don’t you know what staring means?
CLAY I saw you through the window … if that’s what it means. I don’t know if I was staring. Seems to me you
were staring through the window at me.
LULA I was. But only after I’d turned around and saw you staring through that window down in the vicinity of
my ass and legs.
CLAY Really?
LULA Really. I guess you were just taking those idle potshots. Nothing else to do. Run your mind over people’s
flesh.
CLAY Oh boy. Wow, now I admit I was looking in your direction. But the rest of that weight is yours.
LULA I suppose.
CLAY Staring through train windows is weird business. Much weirder than staring very sedately at abstract
asses.
LULA That’s why I came looking through the window … so you’d have more than that to go on. I even smiled
at you.
CLAY That’s right.
LULA I even got into this train, going some other way than mine. Walked down the aisle … searching you out.
CLAY Really? That’s pretty funny.
LULA That’s pretty funny:” .. : . God, you’re dull.
CLAY Well, I’m sorry, lady, but I really wasn’t prepared for party talk.
LULA No, you’re not. What are you prepared for? [Wrapping the apple core in a Kleenex and dropping it on the
floor]
CLAY [Takes her conversation as pure sex talk. He turns to confront her squarely with this idea] I’m prepared for
anything. How about you?
LULA [Laughing loudly and cutting it off abruptly] What do you think you’re doing?
CLAY What?
LULA You think I want to pick you up, get you to take me somewhere and screw me, huh?
CLAY Is that the way I look?
LULA You look like you been trying to grow a beard. That’s exactly what you look like. You look like you live
in New Jersey with your parents and are trying to grow a beard. That’s what. You look like you’ve been
reading Chinese poetry and drinking lukewarm sugarless tea. [Laughs, uncrossing and recrossing her
legs] You look like death eating a soda cracker.
CLAY [Cocking his head from one side to the other, embarrassed and trying to make some comeback, but also
intrigued by what the woman is saying .. even the sharp city coarseness of her voice, which is still a kind of
gentle sidewalk throb] Really? I look like all that?
LULA Not all of it. [She feints a seriousness to cover an actual somber tone] I lie a lot. [Smiling] It helps me
control the world.
CLAY [Relieved and laughing louder than the humor] Yeah, I bet.
LULA But it’s true, most of it, right? Jersey? Your bumpy neck?
CLAY How’d you know all that? Huh? Really, I mean about Jersey … and even the beard. I met you before? You
know Warren Enright?
LULA You tried to make it with your sister when you were ten. [CLAY leans back hard against the back of the
seat, his eyes opening now, still trying to look amused] But I succeeded a few weeks ago. [She starts to
laugh again] CLAY What’re you talking about? Warren tell you that? You’re a friend of
Georgia’s?
LULA I told you I lie. I don’t know your sister. I don’t know Warren Enright.
CLAY You mean you’re just picking these things out of the air?
LULA Is Warren Enright a tall skinny black black boy with a phony English accent?
CLAY I figured you knew him.
LULA But I don’t. I just figured you would know somebody like that. [Laughs]
CLAY Yeah, yeah.
LULA You’re probably on your way to his house now.
CLAY That’s right.
LULA [Putting her hand on CLAY’S closest knee, drawing it from the knee up to the thigh’s hinge, then removing
it, watching his face very closely, and continuing to laugh, perhaps more gently than before] Dull, dull, dull.
I bet you think I’m exciting.
CLAY You’re O.K.
LULA Am I exciting you now?
CLAY Right. That’s not what’s supposed to happen?
LULA How do I know? [She returns her hand, without moving it, then takes it away and plunges it in her bag to
draw out an apple] You want this?
CLAY Sure.
LULA [She gets one out of the bag for herself] Eating apples together is always the first step. Or walking up
uninhabited Seventh Avenue in the twenties2 on weekends. [Bites and giggles, glancing at Clay and
speaking in loose singsong] Can get you involved … boy! Get us involved. Um‐huh. [Mock seriousness]
Would you like to get involved with me, Mister Man?
CLAY [Trying to be as flippant as LULA, whacking happily at the apple] Sure. Why not? A beautiful woman
like you. Huh, I’d be a fool not to.
LULA And I bet you’re sure you know what you’re talking about. [Taking him a little roughly by the wrist, so he
cannot eat the apple, then shaking the wrist] I bet you’re sure of almost everything anybody ever asked
you about … right? [Shakes his wrist harder] Right?
CLAY Yeah, right. … Wow, you’re pretty strong, you know? Whatta you, a lady wrestler or something?
LULA What’s wrong with lady wrestlers? And don’t answer because you never knew any. Huh. [Cynically]
That’s for sure. They don’t have any lady wrestlers in that part of Jersey. That’s for sure.
CLAY Hey, you still haven’t told me how you know so much about me.
LULA I told you I didn’t know anything about you … you’re a well‐known type.
CLAY Really?
LULA Or at least I know the type very well. And your skinny English friend too.
CLAY Anonymously?
LULA [Settles back in seat, singlemindedly finishing her apple and humming snatches of rhythm and blues
song] What?
CLAY Without knowing us specifically?
LULA Oh boy. [Looking quickly at CLAY] What a face. You know, you could be a handsome man.
CLAY I can’t argue with you.
LULA [Vague, offcenter response] What?
CLAY [Raising his voice, thinking the train noise has drowned part of his sentence] I can’t argue with you .
LULA My hair is turning gray. A gray hair for each year and type I’ve come through.
CLAY Why do you want to sound so old?
LULA But it’s always gentle when it starts. [Attention drifting] Hugged against tenements, day or night.
CLAY What?
LULA [Refocusing] Hey, why don’t you take me to that party you’re going to?
CLAY You must be a friend of Warren’s to know about the party.
LULA Wouldn’t you like to take me to the party? [Imitates clinging vine] . Oh, come on, ask me to your party.
CLAY Of course I’ll ask you to come with me to the party. And I’ll bet you’re a friend of Warren’s.
LULA Why not be a friend of Warren’s? Why not? [Taking his arm] Have you asked me yet?
CLAY How can I ask you when I don’t know your name?
LULA Are you talking to my name?
CLAY What is it, a secret?
LULA I’m Lena the Hyena.
CLAY The famous woman poet?
LULA Poetess! The same!
CLAY Well, you know so much about me … what’s my name?
LULA Morris the Hyena.
CLAY The famous woman poet?
LULA The same. [Laughing and going into her bag] You want another apple?
CLAY Can’t make it, lady. I only have to keep one doctor away a day.
LULA I bet your name is … something like … uh, Gerald or Walter. Huh?
CLAY God, no.
LULA Lloyd, Norman? One of those hopeless colored names creeping out of New Jersey Leonard? Gag ….
CLAY Like Warren?
LULAw Definitely. Just exactly like Warren. Or Everett.3
CLAY Gag … ·
LULA Well, for sure, it’s not Willie.
CLAY It’s Clay.
LULA Clay? Really? Clay what?
CLAY Take your pick. Jackson, Johnson, or Williams.
LULA Oh, really? Good for you. But it’s got to be Williams. You’re too pretentious to be a Jackson or Johnson.
CLAY Thass right.
LULA But Clay’s O.K.
CLAY So’s Lena.
LULA It’s Lula.
CLAY Oh?
LULA Lula the Hyena.
CLAY Very good.
LULA [Starts laughing again] Now you say to me, “Lula, Lula, why don’t you go to this party with me tonight?”
It’s your turn, and let those be your lines.
CLAY Lula, why don’t you go to this party with me tonight, Huh?
LULA Say my name twice before you ask, and no huh’s.
CLAY Lula, Lula, why don’t you go to this party with me tonight?
LULA I’d like to go, Clay, but how can you ask me to go when you barely know me?
CLAY That is strange, isn’t it?
LULA What kind of reaction is that? You’re supposed to say, “Aw, come on, we’ll get to know each other better
at the party.”
CLAY That’s pretty corny.
LULA What are you into anyway? [Looking at him half sullenly but still amused] What thing are you playing at,
Mister? Mister Clay Williams? [Grabs his thigh, up near the crotch] What are you thinking about?
CLAY Watch it now, you’re gonna excite me for real.
LULA [Taking her hand away and throwing her apple core through the window] I bet. [She slumps in the seat
and is heavily silent]
CLAY I thought you knew everything about me? What happened? [LULA looks at him, then looks slowly away,
then over where. the other aisle would be. Noise of the train. She reaches in her bag and pulls out one of the
paper books. She puts it on her leg and thumbs the pages listlessly. CLAY cocks his head to see the title of
the book. Noise of the train. LULA flips pages and her eyes drift. Both remain silent] Are you going to the
party with me, Lula?
.
LULA [Bored and not even looking] I don’t even know you. .
CLAY You said you know my type.
LULA [Strangely irritated] Don’t get smart with me, Buster. I know you like the palm of my hand.
CLAY The one you eat the apples with?
LULA Yeh. And the one I open doors late Saturday evening with. That’s my door. Up at the top of the stairs.
Five flights. Above a lot of Italians . and lying Americans. And scrape carrots with: Also. [Looks at him]
the same hand I unbutton my dress with, or let my skirt fall down. Same hand. Lover.
CLAY Are you angry about anything? Did I say something wrong?
LULA Everything you say is wrong. [Mock smile] That’s what makes you so attractive. Ha. In that funnybook
jacket with all the buttons. [More animate, taking hold of his jacket] What’ve you got that jacket and tie
on in all this heat for? And why’re you wearing a jacket and tie like that? Did your people ever burn
witches or start revolutions over the price of tea? Boy, those narrow‐shoulder clothes come from a
tradition you ought to feel oppressed by. A three‐button suit. What right do you have to be wearing a
three‐button suit and striped tie? Your grandfather was a slave, he didn’t go to Harvard.
CLAY My grandfather was a night watchman.
~
LULA And you went to a colored college where everybody thought they were Averell Harriman.
CLAY All except me.
LULA And who did you think you were? Who do you think you are now?
CLAY [Laughs as if to make light of the whole trend of the conversation] Well, in college I thought I was
Baudelaire. But I’ve slowed down since.
LULA I bet you never once thought you were a black nigger. [Mock serious, then she howls with laughter. CLAY
is stunned but after initial reaction, he quickly tries to appreciate the humor. LULA almost shrieks] A black
Baudelaire.
CLAY That’s right.
LULA Boy, are you corny. I take back what I said before. everything you say is not wrong. It’s perfect. You
should be on television.
CLAY You act like you’re on television already.
LULA That’s because I’m an actress .
CLAY I thought so.
LULA Well, you’re wrong. I’m no actress. I told you I always lie. I’m nothing, honey, and don’t you ever forget
it. [Lighter] Although my mother was a Communist. The only person in my family ever to amount to
anything.
CLAY My mother was a Republican.
LULA And your father voted for the man rather than the party.
CLAY Right!
LULA Yea for him. Yea, yea for him.
CLAY Yea!
LULA And yea for America where he is free to vote for the mediocrity of his choice! Yea!
CLAY Yea!
LULA And yea for both your parents who even though they differ about so crucial a matter as the body politic
still forged a union of love and sacrifice that was destined to flower at the birth of the noble Clay …
what’s your middle name?
CLAY Clay.
LULA A union of love and sacrifice that was destined to flower at the birth of the noble Clay Clay Williams.
Yea! And most of all yea yea for you, Clay, Clay. The Black Baudelaire! Yes! [And with knifelike cynicism] My
Christ. My Christ.
CLAY Thank you, ma’am.
LULA The people accept you as a ghost of the future. And love you, that you might not kill them when you
can.
CLAY What?
LULA You’re a murderer, Clay, and you know it. [Her voice darkening with significance] You know goddamn
well what I mean.
CLAY I do?
LULA So we’ll pretend the air is light and full of perfume.
CLAY [Sniffing at her blouse] It is.
LULA And we’ll pretend that people cannot see you. That is, the citizens. And that you are free of your own
history. And I am free of my history. We’ll pretend that we are both anonymous beauties smashing along
through the city’s entrails [She yells as loud as she can] GROOVE!
[Black]
Scene II
Scene is the same as before, though now there are other seats visible in the car. And throughout the scene other
people get on the subway. There are maybe one or two seated in the car as the scene opens, though neither CLAY
nor LULA notices them. CLAY’S tie is open. LULA is hugging his arm.
CLAY The party!
‘
LULA I know it’ll be something good. You can come in with me, looking casual and significant. I’ll be strange,
haughty, and silent, and walk with long slow strides.
CLAY Right.
LULA . When you. get drunk, pat me once very lovingly on the flanks, and I’ll look at you cryptically licking my
lips.
CLAY It sounds like something we can do.
LULA You’ll go around talking to young men about your mind, and to old men about your plans:,. If you meet
a very close friend who is also with someone like me, we can stand together, sipping our drinks and
exchanging codes of lust. The atmosphere will be slithering in love and half‐love and very open
moral decision.
CLAY Great. Great.
LULA And everyone will pretend they don’t know your name, and then … [She pauses heavily] later, when
they have to, they’ll claim a friendship that denies your sterling character.
CLAY [Kissing her neck and fingers] And then what?
LULA Then? Well, then we’ll go down the street, late night, eating apples and winding very deliberately
toward my house.
CLAY Deliberately?
LULA I mean, we’ll look in all the shop windows, and make fun of the queers. Maybe we’ll meet a Jewish
Buddhist and flatten his conceits over some very pretentious coffee.
CLAY In honor of whose God?
LULA Mine.
CLAY Who is … ?
LULA Me … and you?
CLAY A corporate Godhead.
,
LULA Exactly. Exactly. [Notices one of the other people entering]
CLAY Go on with the chronicle. Then what happens to us?
LULA [A mild depression, but she still makes her description triumphant and increasingly direct] To my house,
of course.
CLAY Of course.
LlJLA And up the narrow steps of the tenement.
CLAY You live in a tenement?
LULA Wouldn’t live anywhere else. Reminds me specifically of my novel form of insanity.
..
CLAY Up the tenement stairs.
LULA And with my apple‐eating hand I push open the door and lead you, my tender big‐eyed prey, into
my … God, what can I call it … into my hovel.
CLAY Then what happens?
LULA After the dancing and games, after the long drinks and long walks, the real fun begins.
CLAY Ah, the real fun. [Embarrassed, in spite of himselfJ Which is … ? LULA [Laughs at him] Real fun in the
dark house. Hah! Real fun in the dark house, high up above the street and the ignorant cowboys. I
lead you in, holding your wet hand gently in my hand …
CLAY Which is not wet?
LULA Which is dry as ashes.
CLAY And cold?
LULA Don’t think you’ll get out of your responsibility that way. It’s not cold at all. You Fascist! Into my
dark living room. Where we’ll sit and talk endlessly, endlessly.
CLAY About what?
LULA About what? About your manhood, what do you think? What do you think we’ve been talking about all
this time?
CLAY Well, I didn’t know it was that. That’s for sure. Every other thing in the world but that. [Notices
another person entering, looks quickly, almost involuntarily up and down the car, seeing the other people in
the car] Hey, I didn’t even notice when those people got
LULA Yeah, I know.
CLAY Man, this subway is slow.
LULA Yeah, I know.
CLAY Well, go on. We were talking about my manhood.
LULA We still are. All the time.
CLAY We were in your living room.
LULA My dark living room. Talking endlessly.
CLAY About my manhood. .
LULA I’ll make you a map of it. Just as soon as we get to my house.
CLAY Well, that’s g…
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