How to Read a Novel like Metamorphosis

We started off with a general review of the exam held yesterday. This review is already posted on the previous blog-post. Today we read first few sentences of the Novella titled "Metamorphosis" and tried to understand how this novel depicts the social-psychological reality of the post-war Europe. We also made a quick reference to the Excellent collection of topics included in XI-XII English for Today series. We looked into the 'colonial' perspective of the dictum "Knowledge is Power" and tried to see how it works on a colonizer-colonized relationship. I am sure that this class is FULLY Prepared for a mode detailed discussion of HOW Knowledge is Produced, Distributed, and Consumed. The final part of the class was based on a very primary discussion of the seminal thinkers of 19th century who helped begin modern man's complete separation from the old Victorian world, where everything made a logical-rational sense. We tried to see how these three thinkers made a sharp break with the past world of 19th Century correctness and 18th Century rationalism.

As part of our understanding of how 20th Century was different, we also brought out the Surrealist art of Salvador Dali.I am posting a picture of Dali himself, but it is much better to look at Dali's paintings which was a response to Freud's concept of repressed desires that surface through coded language.

Here is the photograph of Dali which was promised in the class.