Captains Courageous Extra-Credit Options

Three Captains Courageous Extra-Credit Options

DUE OCTOBER 14th (5 pts each) 

1.  Watch The Truth Project’s Founding Father’s Episode at https://apologiaway1.wordpress.com/2015/06/13/16153/           Write a one page summary of what you learned in this episode about the Founding Fathers of America.   For a Bonus 3 Points add another 1/2 page comparing Disko with one or more of our Founding Fathers.

2.  Re-visit the Biblical Family assignment and see if Disko’s parenting style does align with the model of your family in any way or the instructions found in scripture.  Write a one page reflection paper on this subject and receive 5 extra credit points.

Help with Allegory Insights – excerpts from Professor Leonee Ormond

Allegory Insight:

Captains Courageous set in approx. 1866.

 Excerpt Below from: “Captains Courageous” A note on the text http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_courageous_intro.htm
by Professor Leonee Ormond

After the account of Disko’s blow and of Harvey’s fall at the end of Chapter I, Kipling made fewer changes between manuscript and magazine versions. A high proportion of these relate to the account of the relationship between Uncle Salters and Pennsylvania Pratt, the former minister whom the irritable Salters has supported after the Johnstown flood. When he published the novel, Kipling decided to reduce greatly the number of arguments between Salters and Penn, together with the passages which describe the effect of these upon the rest of the crew. Kipling’s intention, here and elsewhere, seems to have been to reduce any suggestion of serious disharmony on the We’re Here. He may also have felt that the Salters-Penn relationship was threatening the balance of his tightly constructed narrative.

Other omissions were made to lessen any impression that the crew of the We’re Here might be rough or brutal. Between manuscript and serial publication Kipling removed a paragraph from Chapter V describing how Disko Troop deliberately cut the jib boom on the boat of a young Gloucester captain who was encroaching upon him, together with the wisecracking which accompanied the act. On the next page, Kipling excised a few words in a commentary on Disko’s dislike of mixing with the crews of other nations. The deleted words specifically stated that Disko avoided contacts which might be undesirable for his son, Dan. An exchange of reasonably friendly interracial insults disappeared from Chapter VIII, and Harvey’s interplay with Wouverman’s clerk over the value of Disko’s fish was taken out of the following chapter. With each of these changes Captains Courageous moved further away from the `realist’ tradition of the ouvrier novel.

Excerpt Below from:

http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_courageous_intro.htm

“Captains Courageous”Introduction by Professor Leonee Ormond

Kipling’s changes to the text do not alter the general direction of a story which Daniel Karlin is right to see as an allegory of the American future. (‘Captains Courageous and American Empire’, Kipling Journal Sep 1989, 11-12). Harvey’s two ‘fathers’, Harvey Cheyne senior and Disko Troop, are contrasted figures of the West and East coasts. Cheyne (chain) is the `kinless’ self-made man of the mechanical future while Troop is descended from generations of Gloucester fishermen. One of Kipling’s original titles was Harvey Cheyne: Banker, and by the end of the book Harvey is proud to have earned his wages and to have become a `banker’, one who has fished on the Grand Banks. Even so, he will never row or rig sails as well as Disko’s son, Dan, trained to the task from a young age. Appropriately for his future role as a captain of industry, Harvey’s most useful function on the We’re Here is to do Disko Troop’s arithmetic.

….
An Allegory of Changing Times

Even while Kipling researched and wrote Captains Courageous, he knew that these schooner fishermen and their skills were doomed. It has been said that he was describing the practices of thirty years before, when Conland himself was at sea. The future lay with the Cheynes and with Dan Troop, who is fascinated by ideas of the `progressive’. Appropriately, the book ends with Dan as a mate on board one of the Cheynes’ liners. As his mother concisely puts it, he accepts a job which will take him out and in on short voyages, not out for months like his father into the mysterious world of the Grand Banks. The pattern of the American twentieth century is established.

…. Kipling did not, however, look into the future with optimism. He told Norton that he objected to the Atlantic reviewer’s description of Captains Courageous as `healthy’, `simple’, and ‘vigorous’.(Letters of Rudyard Kipling ii, 323, Atlantic Monthly Dec 1897). He had not meant, he said, to commend Harvey’s conversation with his father in Chapter X, but believed the attitudes shown there to be `flagrantly un-moral not to say heathen’.(Letters of Rudyard Kipling ii, 323.) Kipling was probably referring to Cheyne’s account of his successful career, `seeking his own ends, and, so he said, the glory and advancement of his country’. Kipling’s whole treatment of Cheyne senior is, however, far more ambivalent than this comment about him would suggest. In Captains Courageous, Kipling conveys considerable admiration for Cheyne and for his career as a successful self-made man. He is presented as a representative figure of the new America, and as such he is representative of Kipling’s own uncertainty about his American experience. For the late twentieth-century reader, Cheyne’s words contain, in any case, little which could be classed as `heathen’, except perhaps his comments on his educated rivals, part of an attempt to persuade Harvey to go to college: `I can break them to little pieces-yes-but I can’t get back at ’em to hurt ’em where they live.’

….. Like Kipling, Conrad underlines the importance of communal endeavour under the leadership of a controlling and right-minded captain. Both captains have fine navigational skills, and the image of the ship at sea becomes a model for a society of men employed on a difficult and isolating task. When Arthur Symons complained that both The Nigger of the `Narcissus’ and Captains Courageous were full of brilliant descriptive prose but of nothing more, Conrad sprang to the defence of Kipling and himself, insisting upon their serious purpose in an article,

…. Kipling originally conceived of Disko’s brother, Uncle Salters, as a more abrasive character, and gave a fuller account of Salters’s arguments with the former minister, Pennsylvania Pratt. Among the other victims of Kipling’s blue pencil were some of the more aggressive taunts shouted from the We’re Here to passing vessels. These cuts had a similar effect, domesticating a crew whose originals would certainly have used stronger language. Even Disko was conceived as a less controlled character. Another deleted passage describes how he breaks off the boom of a young Gloucester captain who encroaches upon his water.
…. Like The Nigger of the `Narcissus’ and Moby Dick, Captains Courageous is a book about a male world. Following a pattern familiar in other works by Kipling (including The Jungle Book and Kim), the boy Harvey reaches maturity through contact with other males, presented as contrasting father figures or teachers.

….Of the two main women characters, Constance Cheyne and Mrs Troop, the former is held to be largely responsible for her son’s failings (although it could be claimed that her husband’s neglect is the real cause of both her neurasthenia and Harvey’s brattishness). Kipling dropped the rings, and the comparison to a fictional sister, with which he ‘feminized’ the unreformed Harvey of the manuscript, but the cherry red blazer, knickerbockers, and bicycle shoes remain to disgust Disko Troop. After his experience at sea, it is to his father that Harvey turns, his mother being left on the sidelines, a state of affairs that Kipling confidently attributes to Harvey’s maturity. Mrs Troop, in keeping with her role, is more reliable, and not subject to hysteria, but her part in the book is strictly stereotyped. She stands for the home virtues: `a large woman, silent and grave, with the dim eyes of those who look long to sea for the return of their beloved’.

Dan, who spends half the year at school, `interprets’ the boat for Harvey and for the reader. Dan is one of the only two characters who understand something of Harvey’s ‘otherness’ in the community of the We’re Here. Dan believes that Harvey is telling the truth about his wealthy background. The other character who grasps this, if at a quite different level, is the cook, a negro from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, who speaks very little, and, when he does, most easily employs the Gaelic of the Scots community. The cook, whose nickname of Doctor seems close to witch doctor, arrives at understanding through intuition, and is one of the two sailors gifted with second sight. The other, the one-time Moravian preacher Jacob Boller (otherwise Pennsylvania Pratt), achieves it only in flashes, as when he tells the bereaved sea captain that his son will be restored to him: ‘”They have found his son”, cried Penn. “Stand you still and see the Salvation of the Lord!”‘

Captains Courageous Allusions to Ponder

[Title] The words `Captains Courageous’ come from the ballad of `Mary Ambree’, the legendary heroine who fought against the Spanish in the 1584 siege of Ghent. The opening lines are

When captains courageous, whom death could not daunt,
Did march to the siege of the city of Gaunt,
They mustered their soldiers by two and by three,
And the foremost in battle was Mary Ambree.

Later in the poem, Mary Ambree herself addresses the Spanish leaders as `captains courageous of valour so bold’, with the implication that the term can also be applied to enemies. Kipling may have known “Mary Ambree” from Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, first published in 1765. He had already used the title “Captains Courageous” for an article on businessmen as the new adventurers, published in The Times of 23 Nov. 1892, and reprinted in Letters of Travel

http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_courageous_notes1_p.htm

http://www.online-literature.com/kipling/letters-of-travel/7/

___________________________________

Allusion to Discobolus

P. 21  Allusion to the famous statue called “Discobolus” when Long Jack calls out the count to Disko, but he calls him Discobolus.

See Link for picture:

“Manuel, you take the tackle. I’ll fix the tables. Harvey, clear Manuel’s boat. Long Jack’s nestin’ on the top of her.”

Harvey looked up from his swabbing at the bottom of another dory just above his head.

“Jest like the Injian puzzle-boxes, ain’t they?” said Dan, as the one boat dropped into the other.

“Takes to ut like a duck to water,” said Long Jack, a grizzly-chinned, long-lipped Galway man, bending to and fro exactly as Manuel had done. Disko in the cabin growled up the hatchway, and they could hear him suck his pencil.

“Wan hunder an’ forty-nine an’ a half-bad luck to ye, Discobolus!” said Long Jack. “I’m murderin’ meself to fill your pockuts. Slate ut for a bad catch. The Portugee has bate me.”

Whack came another dory alongside, and more fish shot into the pen.

Discobolus (Discus-thrower)

Roman copy of a bronze original of the 5th century BC From Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli, Lazio, Italy

One of the most famous images from the ancient world

This marble statue is one of several copies of a lost bronze original of the fifth century BC which was attributed to the sculptor Myron (flourished about 470-440 BC). The head on this figure has been wrongly restored, and should be turned to look towards the discus.

The popularity of the sculpture in antiquity was no doubt due to its representation of the athletic ideal. Discus-throwing was the first element in the pentathlon, and while pentathletes were in some ways considered inferior to those athletes who excelled at a particular sport, their physical appearance was much admired. This was because no one particular set of muscles was over-developed, with the result that their proportions were harmonious.

A number of ancient discuses of either marble or metal, and of various weights, survive. Little is known of the distances achieved in antiquity, though an epigram celebrating a throw of 30 metres (95 feet) comes as a surprise in the modern world, where the current world record is just over 70 metres. However, the ancient technique of discus-throwing may have been rather different: there is no representational evidence for anything more than a three-quarter turn, rather than the two and a half turns used today, and this may be one factor making a direct comparison difficult.

1. Swaddling, The ancient Olympic Games, 3rd edition (London, The British Museum Press, 2004)

J.C.H. King (ed.), Human image (London, The British Museum Press, 2000)_________

Note below from: www.time.com/time/magazine/

article/0,9171,729272,00.htm

Probably the world’s most famed statue of an athlete is of a discobolus (discus-thrower), by Myron, ancient Greek, restored by Professor Furtwangler.

^{*Throwing the discus was revived with the Olympic Games (1896) and has been a recognized event in athletic competitions since that time, becoming very popular in the U. S. The stone discus of antiquity weighed from 4 to 5 lb., although one of bronze was uncovered weighing 8 lb. Thrower Baker, Swarthmore, last week heaved the modern 4%½ lb. discus 139 ft., a new Middle Atlantic record. The world’s record (156 ft. 1⅜ in.) was made by J. Duncan of the U. S. on May 27, 1912}

_______________________________________________________________  

Rupert Allusion

Another allusion perhaps, this time to Prince Rupert of the Rhine?   Rupert “after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Rupert held a series of British naval commands, fighting in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars. He died on 19 November 1682.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/rupert_prince.shtml

And whose correspondence was quoted in Rupert prince Palatine by Eva Scott as saying, “I expect nothing by ill from the West. Let them hear that Rupert says so.”   Keep this in mind when you dig into Kipling’s Notes on America and begin to think more about his critique of the West and admiration of traditional values still held to more tightly in the Eastern US, where the Tripp family is from.

Captains Couragous P.84

“Can a schooner like this go right across to Africa?” said Harvey.

“Go araound the Horn ef there’s anythin’ worth goin’ fer, and the grub holds aout,” said Disko. “My father he run his packet, an’ she was a kind o’ pinkey, abaout fifty ton, I guess,—the Rupert,—he run her over to Greenland’s icy mountains the year ha’af our fleet was tryin’ after cod there. An’ what’s more, he took my mother along with him,—to show her haow the money was earned, I presoom,—an’ they was all iced up, an’ I was born at Disko. Don’t remember nothin’ abaout it, o’ course. We come back when the ice eased in the spring, but they named me fer the place. Kinder mean trick to put up on a baby, but we’re all bound to make mistakes in our lives.”

Definition: “fly the Blue Pigeon” to heave the lead to take ‘soundings’. When in pilotage waters, in the days before echo-sounders to give the depth of water, depth was found with the lead (which was a 7lb. lump of that metal) on the end of the lead-line, which was marked at intervals.

The leadsman, standing in ‘the chains’, a platform projecting from the ship’s side near the bows, swung the lead backwards and forwards until it had got sufficient momentum to carry forward, describing an arc as it fell into the sea some yards ahead of the ship. The skill of the leadsman lay in keeping the lead line just taut, as it became vertical with the lead itself just resting on the seabed, and reading off the mark at the waterline, as the ship passed the position where the lead had entered the water. The lead had a depression in the end which could be ‘armed’ with tallow. On recovery, the tallow would have bits of sea-bed adhering to it: sand, shells, mud, etc., and this could help to give an indication of the bottom, because the nature of the seabed is also recorded on a marine chart, as well as the depth of water.

 

Assuming we’re doing it on the starboard side, you took the coil of lead-line in your left hand, and the lead itself on the end of the line, with about six feet scope of line – i.e., it’s dangling from your hand on the end of about six feet of line (that would be about the height of Tom Platt’s hand above the waterline in the We’re Here – maybe eight feet). You swung the lead backwards and forwards, as described above, or even whirled it in a complete circle above your head (‘flying the blue pigeon’) to give it momentum to carry as far forward as possible. The point is that, if the ship is moving forward, it will not be over the spot where the leadsman released the lead when the latter reaches the sea-bed unless the lead is flung some distance forward. Having swung and released the lead, the leadsman then concentrates on the line running out from his left hand (you have coiled it up very carefully indeed so that you do not get any tangles/knots), and as soon as you feel the lead hit the sea-bed, you gather in the slack of the line, so that the line is taut as the ship passes over the place where the lead is on the sea-bed. The lead-line was marked at given distances, 2,3,5,7,10,13,15,17 and 20 fathoms – e.g. the mark at 13 fathoms was a piece of blue serge. So, if as the ship passed over the lead, the piece of blue serge was just there at the waterline, the leadsman would call out “By the mark thirteen”.

 

 

Captains Courageous Take Home Final

NAME:_____________

Captains Courageous Take Home Final – Complete Before Starting Literary Analysis Paper

Meaning of Captains Courageous Title:

Where did the title Captains Courageous come from?

Why do you think Kipling chose it?

To Read Kipling’s NY Times Article published as Captains Courageous before he wrote his novel by the same name, please see:

 http://www.online-literature.com/kipling/letters-of-travel/7/

The Liner Passengers

What do they represent?

What do they say about Harvey—about America’s upcoming generation?

Disko Troop (Discobolus)

List 5 character traits:

1

2

3

4

5

What is his immediate family like?

What do Captains do?

 

What is Disko known and respected for?

 

What does he want to make away from the influence of the “mixed gathering”?

 

What might this mixed gathering represent?

 

How could his “experiments” relate to America’s foundation?

 

What is Kipling calling America back to?

 

Where is Disko from?  Is there anything significant about that area?

 

From whom did he learn his trade?

 

What deeper meaning does this have?

 

What might this be saying about the “East”?

 

How does this relate to his message to America?

 

Harvey Cheyne Sr.

List 4 character traits:

1

2

3

4

How did he rise to the top?

 

Where is the center of his business located?

 

What did you learn about Kipling’s impression of the American west from his American Notes?

 

How does Cheyne relate to Kipling’s message of warning to the “West”?

 

What do you think Cheyne symbolizes? Why?

 

How does Cheyne Sr. change?  What message is Kipling trying to send through this?

 

Harvey Cheyne Jr.

Of what does Kipling imply Harvey Jr.  is a product?

 

(What did some of the liner passengers say about him?

 

—what does he need in their opinion?

 

What changes Harvey?

 

What spiritual picture does his plunge into the sea, his rescue and change symbolize?

 

What does he learn from Disko and working on We’re Here?

 

What do he and Dan symbolize?

      

Dan Troop 

What do you like most about Dan?

 

Does his character say anything about  America and her possibility?

 

What does his future say about/to America?

 

Pennsylvania Pratt

What was Penn before the tragedy?

 

What’s Penn like most of the time now?

 

What happened to him?

 

When does he shine in the story?

 

What relationship do you see between this scene and the Church through out history?       What warning or message could the Christian Community in America take from this?

 

Who keeps him from returning to his congregation and keeps him from preaching the Word?  Why?

 

Who or what do you think his character symbolizes?

 

What message do you think he is sending to that institution?

 

Uncle Salters

What is Uncle Salters known for aboard the We’re Here?

 

Is he a uniter or a divider?  (What does he think of other denominations?)

 

Could Uncle Salters represent Uncle Sam? How? Why?  (see p. 93)

 

When Penn goes back to forgetting who he is, who is he subservient to?

 

Is Penn any good to anyone then?

 

How about the Church?

 

What was Salters reaction when he thought he’d lost “Penn” and Jacob Boller had returned?  Why? (p.91-92)

 

Remember how he thought Old Ollie had made his son an idol and that was why his son was taken.   Is Uncle Salters a self-righteous, false prophet?  Is there any other evidence of this?

 

Do you think he is telling some truth and America is in danger because she’s made her children idols?  What do you think Kipling had in mind when he included this?

 

What do you think Uncle Salters stands for in the book?       Does his name sound like anything familiar?       What does his character recite on Sundays?       In what ways could these be hints?

 

Cook (Doc)

After reading “The White Man’s Burden” and its introduction what do you think the ending of C. C. means?

 

 Manuel What message do you think Manuel’s character might be sending?

 

Why do you think Kipling had Manuel be the one to rescue Harvey?

 

(Could it be that Kipling was raised until age 6 by a Portuguese Catholic Nanny? Can you find any other personal reason Kipling might make this choice?  Any reason based on elements of the story.)

 Tom Platt (navy man)

What’s Kipling’s opinion of America’s Navy?

 

What does he think of our coasts?

 

Long Jack

Why is he included as part of the crew?

 

Fishing Fleet/Towns on water

What do the Grand Banks fishing fleet or “towns on water” represent?

     

 The We’re Here

What kind of boat is she?

 

What are some of We’re Here’s characteristics?

 

What values do she and Disko represent?

 

Is she the future or the past?

 

Which do you think Kipling wishes she was?

 

What is one of Kipling’s main messages to America that he is sending through these two?       How do you know?     (back it up with quotes or summaries from the book)

 

 Anchors–

Why does Kipling include all the talk about anchors? See bottom of p.92

 

What do they symbolize?  What boats are known for slipping their anchor?  What message does that sent?

      

Do you think any of the other fishing boats mentioned in the story have any particular significance?  If so, what?

 

Toothpicks

What are these?

 

Why does Dan want one?

 

Why does Disko not want anything to do with them? p.64

 

Why do people turn to them?

 

What does this say about America’s direction?

 

What did “progressive” probably mean to Kipling?       What did “progressive” mean in the 19^th Century?

 

How are the toothpicks “progressive”?

 

Railroads, Ocean Liners & Tea Clippers

What do these symbolize?

 

How is Kipling calling America to use her resources and influence?

 

What was significant about Harvey falling off of an ocean liner?       What happened with an ocean liner later in the story?        What did Disco say about neighbors and courtesy and big boats?       Why did he expect more from the powerful boats?       What message was Kipling sending through that?

 

 

Captains Courageous Whole Book Review Work Sheet (In Class)

MATCH THESE NAMES WITH CORRECT DESCRIPTION BELOW:

Pennsylvania Pratt (real name Jacob Boller)              Uncle Salters

 Manuel                                                                                 Liner Passengers(ch.1)

 Tom Platt                                                                           Harvey Cheyne and Dan Troop

 Cook (Doc)                                                                         Fishing Schooners                

 Discobolus                                                                          Railroads

 The We’re Here                                                                 Toothpicks              

 Harvey Cheyne                                                                   Long Jack

 

1. _____________ This crew member was a farmer originally.  He was thought to be bad luck on the boat, and works hard to keep Penn from remembering his past (for his own good he thinks).  He keeps Penn away from preaching the Word.  He quotes Josephus (A Jewish Historian.)  He’s legalistic, but doesn’t follow the “law”.  He’s the Captain’s brother and there by his grace.  He’s quite hard on the Captain’s son.

 

2. ____________ The “literal engines behind this era of unprecedented growth.” (http://www.sparknotes.com/history/american/gildedage/summary.html) Connected the East and West Coasts allowing goods and people traverse the country, created great wealth for many.

 

3. ____________ Catholic member of the crew whose religion and rituals seem more like superstition, he lights his candles at church then goes out chasing the girls.

 

4. _____________ Navy man, does things the Navy way (sailed on The Ohio, top of the line ship from 1816, which Kipling refers to through a narrative line in C. C. as being “more extinct than the Dodo.”)

 

5. _____________ Thinks a lot of Harvey, originally from the south sea islands, willing to serve Harvey all his days, leads boys in idolatrous, pagan practice, which Penn condemns.  He “prophesies” about “Master-Man, Man-Master” in regards to Dan being under Harvey some day, but his foreknowledge is not related to God in anyway, instead he is called “Doc” possibly in reference to his witch doctor-like practices.

 

6. ______________ Said, “That Cheyne boy’s the biggest nuisance aboard…He isn’t wanted here.  He’s too fresh….What’s wrong with the old man attending to him personally?”  “He’s too busy piling up the rocks. ‘Don’t want to be disturbed, I guess.”  AND “I know der breed. Ameriga is full of dot kind.  I dell you you should imbort ropes’ ends free under your dariff.”  (Meaning America is full of that kind and they should be importing rope’s for whipping because they all need it.)

7. ______________ Nickname for the fancy, progressive haddockers and herring boats that are as comfortable and big as a yacht with all the latest technology—“chock full o’ labour-savin’ jigs and such all”, but Disko is “set against them on account of their pitchin’ and joltin’.”  They’re not stable in a storm at all.

8. ______________ Has sincere faith, but has forgotten it—blocked out his past roots because of personal tragedy.  Is from a state that was one of the earliest places of religious freedom, whose government became one of the models for the U.S. Constitution.  The Moravian sect which he was from was a strict Protestant sect originally from Middle Europe, which spread to North America in the mid eighteenth century. ( www.kipling.org.uk/rg_courageous_notes1.htm)  Has true faith when he is in his right mind, and gives true judgments on spiritual matters.

9. _______________________They have become best friends. Harvey says of him, “he’s my partner.”

10. _______________ Two-masted sailboats famous for fishing cod and haddock on the Grand Banks in the mid-1800’s.  A dying breed at the time Captains Courageous was published because of overfishing and newer, more modern boats replacing them.  Often had crews who had immigrated from all over the world.  Each boat often used different sailing and fishing techniques, trouble could arise when these were crowded together.
11. ________________ Bronze statue created by Myron in 5^th Century and represented the athletic ideal—an athlete whose physical proportions were just right and thought to be “harmonious”. (J. Swaddling, The ancient Olympic Games, 3rd edition (London, The British Museum Press, 2004)  AND J.C.H. King (ed.), Human image (London, The British Museum Press, 2000) )
12. _________________ Disko’s trusted and tried, sturdy schooner that never slips anchor, can handle the roughest of water and can wet all her salt before any of the other boats (old or new) and get back to home port a week early getting the best price for her catch. She’s definitely worth her salt.
13. ____________ Has the greatest ‘conversion’ of all the characters. He practically goes in the water one boy and comes out another, being rescued from death and from himself, given a new chance and becoming a new person.

 

14. ______________ Described by Dan as having humpy shoulders, a Galway man—Galway=a port on the west coast of Ireland.  This crew member is from South Boston where many Irish immigrants live.

Now go to your final and see if you can match these people or things with what Kipling may have been trying to symbolize in Captain’s Courageous. 

Captains Courageous ONE PAGE ESSAY QUESTIONS Due Oct. 7th

NAME:______________________________

Captains Courageous ONE PAGE ESSAY QUESTIONS

Juniors & Seniors MUST DO BOTH Short Essay Questions

One Page Short Essay (10 pts), Venn Diagram Packet & Take Home Final Parts 1 & 2 Due Friday, Oct. 7th

   (Juniors & Seniors Scroll Down for #2)

SHORT ESSAY #1 ALL STUDENTS ANSWER: 5 Points

What evidence of Harvey Jr.’s changed life can you find in Captains Courageous? What were the changes that Harvey’s dad, Mr. Cheyne, saw in his son? Be sure to state specific examples from the book and include page numbers.  Lastly, be sure to note why Cheyne’s statement on p. 124, when he says, “Don’t see as Europe could have done it any better,” is significant to the message of Kipling’s book.

SHORT ESSAY #2 Juniors & Seniors Must Answer – 5 Points

(Extra-credit for Freshmen & Sophomores)

What parts of the book make it seem like “relief at the cost of life” and “a steamer under-engined for its length” as one critic described it? If Kipling did this on purpose, what do you think he might have been saying about America by including parts that seem to make the plot stall? How might this be part of Kipling’s call for America to “grow up”?  What insights do the following notes for Kipling’s very famous poem “White Man’s Burden” add to this theme? (The poem was completed only two years after Captains Courageous.)  How does this analysis of Kipling’s motivation miss the mark Biblically?  What might be some noble reasons to expand democracy, humanitarian and spiritual aid to other peoples and places?  Some sinful reasons?

 

The White Man’s Burden

TAKE up the White Man’s burden – Send forth the best ye breed – Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need; To wait in heavy harness On fluttered folk and wild – Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child.Take up the White Man’s burden – In patience to abide To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain, To seek another’s profit, And work another’s gain.Take up the White Man’s burden – The savage wars of peace – Fill full the mouth of famine And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought, Watch Sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hopes to nought.Take up the White Man’s burden – No tawdry rule of kings, But toil of serf and sweeper – The tale of common things. The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread, Go make them with your living, And mark them with your dead ! Take up the White Man’s burden – And reap his old reward, The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard – The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah slowly !) towards the light:- “Why brought ye us from bondage, “Our loved Egyptian night ?” Take up the White Man’s burden – Ye dare not stoop to less – Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloak your weariness; By all ye cry or whisper, By all ye leave or do, The silent sullen peoples Shall weigh your Gods[1] and you. Take up the White Man’s burden – Have done with childish days – The lightly proffered laurel, The easy, ungrudged praise. Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years, Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment of your peers.

 

Read “White Man’s Burden” Intro Notes by Mary Hamer http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_burden1.htm

And Vocabulary Notes: http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_burden1.htm

[1] “Gods” originally God. See Mary Hamer’s Notes at http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_burden1.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reading Journal Help

As you take notes, notice when various literary elements are used.  Try marking the margin of your journal with the following abbreviations or words,.  Also mark the page number where the key information relating to these five elements of fiction is found in the text, or where a significant literary device is used.

 

S = Setting

C = Characterization (then ID Character’s Name—ie.  C-Disko or C-Harvey etc, Quote or list character traits shown)

P = Plot  (Make note of significant things happening in each chapter that move the story along. Short summary statements fine.)

↑ = Conflict (What is causing the tension to build?  Is this an external or internal conflict?  This will often be tied to the Plot.)

TH = Theme (The Novel’s main message, underlying idea being communicated, or the leading subject)

WV = Author’s Worldview (Likely tied closely with theme, Is the Author’s worldview assumption consistent with scripture? How so?  Contrary to Scripture?  How so?  Directly defying God and His Word?  True?  False?  Well supported?  “Every writer is understood to be transmitting some truth or falsehood, some fact or meaning, during the writing process.” Mike McHugh)

Literary Devices to Note:

 Foreshadowing-Hints within the text of events that will take place, early clues about what will happen later on.

 Irony—A mode of speech or writing expressing a literal sense contrary to the meaning intended by the speaker.

 Symbolism—what is being symbolized? How?

 Motif—Repeated phrase, recurring structure, contrast or a pattern of identical or similar images recurring throughout a passage or the entire work

Personification– A comparison in which human qualities are assigned to something inanimate.

 Imagery (Metaphor or Simile) – You may note ones that are particularly poignant or really stand out

 Poetic Devices (alliteration, assonance, etc.)

 Allusion—an indirect reference to some character or event in literature, history, or mythology that enriches the meaning of the passage or aids in understanding.

 Hyperbole—Purposeful extreme exaggeration

 

Kipling Bio Summary — Study for Quiz

Intro. To Rudyard Kipling—Author Background

Be familiar with this biographical information for your quiz on

September 23rd.

READ:

www.bookrags.com/biography/joseph-rudayrd-kipling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling

 

His works fit with Realism and he wrote during its sub-period called The Victorian Period.

Bundi Palace inspired Rudyard Kipling to write KIM

Bundi, Rajputana, is the place where Kipling was inspired to write Kim.

In 1889, Kipling visited the United States for the first time on his way from India to London.  He had been released from the paper he was working for over a dispute (but many of his American observations were published by the Pioneer paper he had worked for).  He traveled from San Francisco up the west coast to Portland, OR, and Seattle, WA then spent a little time in British Columbia, Canada, then returned to the US working across the country—through Yellowstone, down to Salt Lake City, to Omaha, Nebraska to Chicago then Pennsylvania and on to Niagara Falls, Toronto, Washington D.C. and then to New York.  His observations are recorded in his American Notes.   (http://books.eserver.org/nonfiction/american_notes.html ) On his travels, he got to meet Mark Twain in Elmira, New York, feeling quite awed by his presence.

 

 

Captains Courageous Introduction Hand Out

Captains Courageous Title http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_courageous_notes1_p.htm

[October 29th 2003]

[Title] The words `Captains Courageous’ come from the ballad of `Mary Ambree’, the legendary heroine who fought against the Spanish in the 1584 siege of Ghent. The opening lines are

When captains courageous, whom death could not daunt,
Did march to the siege of the city of Gaunt,
They mustered their soldiers by two and by three,
And the foremost in battle was Mary Ambree.

Later in the poem, Mary Ambree herself addresses the Spanish leaders as `captains courageous of valour so bold’, with the implication that the term can also be applied to enemies. Kipling may have known “Mary Ambree” from Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, first published in 1765. He had already used the title “Captains Courageous” for an article on businessmen as the new adventurers, published in The Times of 23 Nov. 1892, and reprinted in Letters of Travel

SETTING of Captain’s Courageous

The Gloucester, Massachusetts schooner “We’re Here” (pronounced Glosster—like floss), fishing on the Grand Banks—a very famous and highly productive fishery in the 1800’s especially.  See Page 2.

Setting haddock trawls from schooner under sail; Set at right angles to course of the vessel Drawing by H. W. Elliott and Capt. J. W. Collins Credit: NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Category: Cod, Hake & Haddock Fishery/

Setting haddock trawls from schooner under sail; Set at right angles to course of the vessel Drawing by H. W. Elliott and Capt. J. W. Collins Credit: NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Category: Cod, Hake & Haddock Fishery/

Map showing the Grand Banks

The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a group of underwater plateaus southeast of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. These areas are relatively shallow, ranging from 80 to 330 feet (24–100 m) in depth. The cold Labrador Current mixes with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream here.

The mixing of these waters and the shape of the ocean bottom lifts nutrients to the surface. These conditions helped to create one of the richest fishing grounds in the world. Fish species include Atlantic cod, haddock, and capelin. Shellfish include scallop and lobster. The area also supports large colonies of sea birds such as Northern Gannets, shearwaters, and sea ducks and various sea mammals such as seals, dolphins, and whales.

In addition to the effects on nutrients, the mixing of the cold and warm currents often causes fog in the area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Banks_of_Newfoundland

READ THE EXERPT BELOW—This is how we know Captains Courageous was written as an allegory, a parable and full of metaphor.  These statements are the backbone of our investigation to understand what the author intended this story to mean.

Excerpt from

“Captains Courageous”

Introduction

by Professor Leonee Ormond

Notes on the text

These notes are based on those written by Leonee Ormond for the OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS edition of Captains Courageous (1995) with the kind permission of Oxford University Press. Except where stated otherwise, the page numbers below refer to the Macmillan Uniform Edition of Captains Courageous (1899, and frequently reprinted since).

(http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_courageous_intro.htm)

[Oct 27 2003]
Kipling and the Critics –In December 1897 Rudyard Kipling was in low spirits. The weather was inclement, he had an atrocious cold, and a review of Captains Courageous in the Atlantic Monthly (LXXX Dec 1897, pp 856/7) had left him smarting. The Atlantic critic complained that, although the book achieved `relief from the go-fever and insistence of Kipling’s earlier work, `it is relief procured at the cost of life…. There is an almost incredible lack of significance in parts of it, as if it were a steamer underengined for its length.’ Kipling was startled by the reviewer’s strictures. These were, he said, exactly the qualities which he associated with the United States. Interpreting `relief’ in his own way, Kipling explained his position to an American friend, Charles Eliot Norton:

Had I gone about with a lantern to describe America I could not have hit on a more splendid description than `relief at the cost of life’. Relief from the material cares of the Elder Peoples at the cost of what the Elder Peoples mean by life! And again `There is an almost incredible insignificance in parts of it, as if it were a steamer underengined on its length’. Why, hang it! that’s his own very country and in half a dozen words he gets at the nub of the thing I was laboriously painting in C. C.

`For this’, went on Kipling, `did I change my style; and allegorize and parable and metaphor.’

___________________________________________________________________

 

A Note by Kate MacDonald about Racial Slurs and the Subject of Racism in Captains Courageous:

 

This nameless cook is a haunting character. He has second sight, which gives him a status that requires respect. He’s a descendant of slaves from Cape Breton, and is, even more unusually, a Gaelic speaker with voodoo beliefs. Kipling’s description of this character fits the culture of his time, with occasional use of the n-word in the dialogue that will offend readers who don’t understand historical context. (AND even those who do, but it was common language in 1896 when Kipling wrote CC.)

 

But Kipling is also egalitarian: Disko most pointedly does not hold with slavery. The cook is treated with great respect on the ship, and is an equal, paid member of the crew. His seeing into the future adds gooseflesh to this story of boys and men on a very small boat in the middle of the deep green sea.

Rudyard Kipling and Captains Courageous 

 

CC Historical Context-“The Myth of America’s Free Security” Excerpt

Fareed Zakaria, “The Myth of America’s ‘Free Security’ (Reconsiderations),” World Policy Journal, Vol. 14, no. 2 (Summer 1997)

In fact, American foreign policy has always been driven, in the first place, by an awareness of American strength and the search for greater influence over the international environment. What changed at the turn of the century was not American intentions but American capabilities. Liberal realists have always been uncomfortable with the sheer magnitude of American power because it brings with it aspirations to worldwide influence and the abandonment of the need for restraints. We see it today; the United Sates may or may not be pursuing a wise foreign policy in various parts of the world. The dominant reality, however, is that it has a large margin of error. Many wish it were more constrained.

By the 1890s, the United States had grown so strong and had so many resources at its disposal that its behavior came to resemble that of other great powers. It enlarged its military and diplomatic apparatus; it annexed territories; it sought basing rights; it participated in great power conferences. It sought influence beyond limited security aims because it was strong enough to do so.

This shift in behavior did not represent a qualitative change in the tradition of American expansion. American statesmen had led the spread of the country across the continent – the Louisiana Purchase, Texas, California, the Oregon Territory, Alaska. Throughout the nineteenth century, they had their eyes on Cuba and Mexico to the south and Canada to the north. Theodore Roosevelt’s one-line interpretation of American foreign policy is closer to the truth than the volumes of liberal realist writings: “Our history has been one of expansion…. This expansion is not a matter of regret, but of pride.”

Notes

This article is adapted from a paper presented at a conference, “American Mythologies,” sponsored by Bard College, November 2-3, 1996. A revised version will appear in the author’s forthcoming book, Strong Nation, Weak State: The Rise of America to World

1. Boston: Little Brown, 1943, pp. 3, 30, 49.
2. Historians often use the word “expansionist” to mean imperialist. I use it in a more commonsense way to mean an activist foreign policy. Thus the Soviet Union could be termed expansionist in the 1970s even though it did not annex parts of Africa and Asia.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/nosecure.htm