Instruction
1. This activity will ask you to compare two powerful characters we have met in our reading—Ulysses from Tennyson’s “Ulysses” and the Duke from Browning’s “My Last Duchess.”
We are often drawn to rich and powerful men, even when they are not the best role models or the nicest guys (think Donald Trump, Wall Street Brokers, some sports figures). Both Ulysses and the Duke are towering figures. One is a classic hero with perhaps a big ego and more concern for going back to sea with his men than for his wife and son. The other is a Renaissance nobleman with great taste in art who may be a cold killer. Both reveal a great deal about themselves as they speak.
[Note “Ulysses” is written in blank verse or unrhymed iambic pentameter while “My Last Dutchess” is written in rhyming couplets].
Compare Ulysses and the Duke as leaders, family men, personalities. What do you admire or dislike about each? Is either one a “hero”? (An issue we have discussed before with Sammy in “A&P”.) Respond to your peers and note whether or not they see the figures as heroic.
2. This activity asks you to consider the poem “The Unknown Citizen” as a powerful and ironic view of modern man in his social-political setting. You are also asked to review the short story “Harrison Bergeron” from Module 3.
What makes someone an ideal citizen—obedience, loyalty, being average and accepting social-political dictates? Or does such blandness and conformity rob us of individuality and the freedom to be different and unique?
Carefully analyze the poem by Auden on p. 669 and decide what it’s saying. Use the questions on p. 670 to help you. This poem is often misunderstood and misinterpreted. See if you and your classmates can agree on a primary interpretation; you may wish to add what you personally believe makes one a good citizen.