Korea, by John McGahern

 

Audiobook

Film

Analysis

John McGahern

He was born in Dublin in 1934 and died aged 71. He was the oldest of seven brothers and sisters. He grew up in a small farm. His mother was a school teacher, and his father a sergeant in the Garda, the Irish police force. When his mother died, he was ten, and the whole family went to live in the Garda barracks. The sergeant was a violent man and treated his children accordingly.

John trained as a teacher and worked some time in a school. At the same time, he began to write, but when he published his novel The Dark, he was dismissed, and his book banned by the Irish Censorship Board, for its pornographic content, according to the Board. So he went to England, where he worked on a variety of jobs. After some years, he went back to Ireland, and he settled in a small farm far from everywhere.

His six novels are mostly based in his personal experiences.

The Barracks is a description of the life in the Garda barracks. The Dark narrates a young man’s life. The Leavetaking is about his work as a teacher and about being fired. The Pornographer tells the story of a writer who has to write porno for his living. Amongst Women follows the life of an IRA veteran, and That they May Face the Rising Sun explores the Irish rural life.

He also wrote a Memoir, some plays and short stories collections, the last one, Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories, that contains a selection of all his old stories and some new ones.

 

Korea

It’s a curious title for a story set in the rural Ireland; nevertheless, the Korean War between 1950 and 1953 situates the narrative in time and provides its historical background.

A father and his son, who is about to finish his schooling, earn their living by fishing for eels. They also had a small piece of land where they grow some vegetables. It’s an economy of subsistence in a poor rural area. However, the authorities want to limit the fishing quota in order to leave more fish for the tourists that are going there from England. So, prospects for the eel business aren’t very good. The father is worried about his son’s future and, seeing that in Ireland there won’t be opportunities for him in Ireland, proposes him to go to the USA. At first, his son doesn’t know what to answer, but then he overhears a conversation between his father and a neighbour: there are lots of jobs available in the army because of the Korean War; they pay $250 monthly, and, in case of death, the family gets $10.000. Thus, America is a possibility of success and also a risk of death. Now the boy has taken his decision: he’ll stay in Ireland.

As his father goes on insisting in his going away, the son suspects that he wants him in the army in order to get his pay; or even worse, that he wants him dead so he can get the ten thousand dollars.

At the beginning of the story, the father, who fought for the Irish independence and is disappointed with the new country because he hasn’t made any profit by it, tells the boy about an execution by shooting of an adult man and a boy. The man displays a total indifference or even disdain to the firing squad, but the boy cries, struggles and at the end obeys orders as a soldier. This sad scene haunted the man forever, and it’s a kind of allegory of the contrast between youth and experience.

QUESTIONS

-According to you, what is the meaning of the episode of the executions in the story? Is there a parallelism between the two adults and the two boys?

-Do you think that, in extreme cases, the death penalty is necessary?

-In your opinion, why this episode haunts the father in his wedding?

-Why are there quotas in haunting, fishing or collecting some natural products? Do you think that it is fair?

-Must a father send his son to an incertain future if the alternative possibilities are very poor?

-Progress usually destroys traditional ways of living. But, does tourism bring progress to the countries it visits?

-"I fought for this country", says the father. But, what is a country for you?

-It seems that independence doesn’t make some people happy as they hoped. Why do you think is that?

-Could you detail the differences between the short story and the film?

VOCABULARY

rap, tunic, highfalutin, throbbed, bow, stern, beaded, consignment, bows of ridges, coarse, conscripted, shirred, fend

The Rocking-Horse Winner, by D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence at the Wikipedia

The Rocking-Horse Winner at the Wikipedia

A Summary and Analysis of D. H. Lawrence’s The Rocking-Horse Winner

The Rocking-Horse Winner Study Guide

Audiobook

D. H. LAWRENCE, by Adriana Cruz

BIOGRAPHY

David Herbert Richards Lawrence, his birth name, was born in Eastwood,

England, the 11th of September 1885, and he died in Vence, France, on the 2nd of March 1930 (the cause of death was tuberculosis). He was married to Frida von Richthofen, a German literate.

Lawrence was an English writer, author of novels, poems, plays, essays, short stories, travel books, paintings, translations, and literary criticism. His literature exposes an extensive reflection on the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization. Lawrence views on all these matters caused him many personal problems. As a consequence, he had to spend most of his life in voluntary exile, which he himself called a “wild pilgrimage”. Among his most notable works there are Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. He got distinctions like the James Tait Black Award.

In his childhood, he studied at Beauvale Board School, becoming the first local student to win a county council scholarship to Nottingham High School.

He also studied at the University of London, where served as a teacher and received a teaching diploma in 1908. In the autumn of the same year, Lawrence left the home of his youth for London, although he continued to work as a teacher for a few more years.

Lawrence had a very close relationship with his mother. 

He had an affair with a married woman six years older than him with three small children, and they flew to Freida’s parents’ home in Metz. Afterwards, they got married.

He spent the rest of his life travelling in the company of his wife around several countries. Finally, they arrived in the United States in September 1922, where they met Mabel Dodge Luhan, a public figure, and contemplated establishing a utopian community on what was then Kiowa Ranch near Taos, New Mexico.

They acquired the property, known today as the D. H. Lawrence Ranch.

 

SUMMARY

The story tells of a middle-class family with three children (a boy and two girls), who live in a good house with a garden, with discreet servants. Although so that everyone could notice, they kept up appearances. The mother is haunted by a sense of failure, always thinking that she needs more than she has. Her husband did not earn as much as she wanted and the life he would like to have with her luxuries and extravagance. Her children feel this anxiety, even claiming they can hear the house whisper, “There must be more money.”
The boy Paul was playing with his wooden horse in search of luck and ordered his horse to take him where the luck is.
Basset, the gardener, told him about horse racing and the two became partners.
One day, the boy is questioned by his uncle on the subject, and he is surprised when he tells him the name of the winner. Uncle Oscar, intrigued, asks how he knows who will win, but Paul tells him that he only knows who wins and doesn’t tell him his secret. That’s how the guy finds out about his earnings and successes.
Uncle Oscar Cresswell becomes a partner with them. The boy and Bassett make huge bets on the horses Paul names.
When Paul decides to give the mother a gift of £1,000, on her every birthday, for five years, so that he can ease her commitments, but only makes her spend more.
Disappointed, Paul tries harder than ever to be “lucky.” As the Derby draws near, Paul is determined to meet the winner.
The mother, returning from a party, discovers his secret; She has spent hours riding his rocking horse, sometimes all night, until he “arrives”, in a clairvoyant state where he can be sure of the winner’s name.
Her uncle and the Gardener bet and won big on the investment of 14 to 1 of everything he had.
The mother now had a lot of money, but she did not have her son.

The boy told his mother, “Mom, I’ll ever leave you: I’m lucky”.

QUESTIONS

Talk about the main characters:

Paul
His mother
His father
His uncle
The gardener
Why do you think the mother couldn’t love her children?
Do you think money can make happiness?
And what about luck? Can it make you happy?
Being lucky is something that depends on the causality, or can you do something to be lucky? Remember the saying “Fortuna helps the brave”.
Are you pro or against lotteries? Why?
Paul’s mother became unlucky when she got married? Do you think marriage can change people so much?
Mantra is a commonly repeated word or phrase, especially in advocacy or for motivation. In the story we can find two or more mantras (“There must be more money”, “I want luck”). Do you think mantras can be useful or effective? (Perhaps you remember old people saying the rosary.)
Why do you think uncle Oscar is lucky?
Do you believe in intuitions or hunches?
The mother got some money for her birthday. Was she happy then? Why?
Does our childhood determine the way we are as adults?
Some interpretations of this story say that the boy has the Oedipal complex and that his rocking on the horse is like a kind of masturbation. What is your opinion about this interpretation?
What is the symbolic meaning of the story according to your point of view?

VOCABULARY

thrust, grinding, racked, champing, smirking, pram, brazening it out, peer, careered, steed, batman, blade, sport, honour bright, daffodil, romancer, fiver, spinning yarns, writs, writhed, drapers, sequins, overwrought, quaint, prance, uncanny, Master, as right as a trivet, tossing