For Tuesday: Wolff, True Believer, Chapters 1-16 (pp.3-56)

Answer TWO questions total, one from each category below: 

POETICS QUESTIONS (Answer 1):

Q1: True Believer is written in free verse, which lacks any unified rhyme of rhythmic structure. As Helen Vendler, a famous professor of literature explains, “The unit of free verse seems to be breath: there is a breath limit to a long line of free verse. The theoretical appeal of free verse is that it admits an element of chance; it offers a model not of a providential universe but of an aleatory one, where the casual, rather than the fated, holds sway.” (NOTE: “aleatory means random). Why might the idea of “breath” be important to the story or narration of this novel? Also, where might we see an element of chance or spontaneity in the book itself?

Q2: Though this is a novel, it’s also fun to read it as a work of poetry, composed of several hundred small metaphors that quilt the work like a mosaic. Discuss one or two metaphors that dance out at you and make this work more as a poem. Here’s one for free: ““She looks at me with her face full of rules” (8).

Q3: Discuss LaVaughn’s voice as a narrator in the novel. Though obviously 1^st person, what else can we say or characterize about it? Is she a reliable narrator? Do we trust her judgment and perception of the world around her? Does the author sometimes let us see a world that she sees, but doesn’t quite see? And how might her ‘discourse’ (to use Culler’s term) shape the events of this story—a girl’s coming-of-age in the inner city—into a distinct plot?

HERMENEUTICS QUESTIONS (Answer 1):  

Q1: Why do you think Wolff never mentions LaVaughn’s race in the novel, or anyone else’s, for that matter? Though True Believer is a story of inner-city kids in a dangerous environment, is it strange that race never plays a factor in the students’ lives?

Q2: How does this book relate to some of the themes and characters in another poem we read this semester, “Requiem for Fifth Period”? What might both works (and their authors) agree on about the nature of education and the role of educators in that process?

Q3: When the guidance counselor meets with her early on in the novel, he explains what classes she’ll need if she wants to prepare for college. He explains, “your records had us confused at first…we didn’t know that. Not at first./But we know now. We know now” (55). Why do you think they almost missed LaVaughn and didn’t advise her properly? What might have “confused” them?

Q4: Why do you think LaVaughn doesn’t succumb to peer pressure and join the Joyful Universal Church of Jesus with her best friends, Annie and Myrtle? Is she simply jealous of what they share together, or does some other reason keep her aloof from the church and its activities?