Transcript The Portable Phonograph

Story Element: Setting
Essential Questions:
1. What impact can setting have on a story?
2. To what extent is the historical content necessary
to one’s understanding of the story?
3. How is our setting impacted by unique local
aspects (economical, educational, geographical)?
The Portable Phonograph
By Walter Van Tilburg Clark
• Clark was born in Vermont. He spent the first half
of his adulthood in New England. He spent the
latter half in the American West as a professor
and writer.
• His father was the president of the University of
Nevada.
• He was farming and teaching school in
Cazenovia, New York when his first novel was
published, The Ox-Bow Incident (1940). Thus he
became a national literary figure at thirty. 20th
Century Fox released a feature film of The OxBow Incident in 1943, starring Henry Fonda and
Dana Andrews. A condensed Armed Services
Edition of The City of Trembling Leaves was
produced during World War II, when over 123
million books were sent to U. S. troops.
•
https://knowledgecenter.unr.edu/libraries/support/writers_hof/clark.html (University of Nevada Reno
Library
Notable Post-Apocalyptic Novels
1954, 1979, and 2006. Link to more novel cover pictures.
ACT Preparation. Passages from “The Portable Phonograph”.
The red sunset, (1) with narrow black
a. No change
cloud strips like threats across it lay on
the curved horizon of the prairie.
b. with narrow black cloud strips, like
threats across it lay on the curved horizon
c. with narrow, black cloud strips like
threats across it lay on the curved horizon
d. with narrow, black cloud strips like
threats across it, lay on the curved horizon
Out of the sunset, through the dead,
matted grass and isolated weed stalks of
the prairie, crept the narrow deeply rutted
remains of a road. In the road, in places,
there were crusts of shallow brittle ice.
(2) There are little islands of an old oiled
pavement in the road too, but most of it
was mud, now frozen rigid.
a. No change
b. There will be
c. There were
d. There had been
The Portable Phonograph
•
•
Point of View: 3
Setting:
rd
–
–
•
person omniscient.
Post-apocalyptic world. Onset of winter. Rural area?
Sparsely populated
The focus is on the harshness of nature, not the beauty.
Characters: Four men. Doctor Jenkins (host) lives near a stream.
Three visitors: older angry man (writer?), young, sick man (musician),
other man.
The Portable Phonograph
•
Tone: Hostile, Unforgiving, Desolate.
•
Symbolism:
1. The pieces of literature and the music represent pre-war
civilization. The doctor thinks civilization has diminished
beyond recognition, but the music and books represent the
refinement and civility of humanity’s previous society.
2. The lead pipe is a weapon. It symbolizes that this is a dogeat-dog world, one in which those who possess anything of
value must be prepared to defend themselves.
The Portable Phonograph
Types and Uses of Setting (chapter 6)
–
Nature and the Outdoors:
“A sensation of torment, of two-sided, unpredictable nature arose from the
stillness of the earth air beneath the violence of the upper air.” p. 251
–
Setting and Credibility:
“There was the smell and expectation of snow…” p. 251. Readers know this
time, a vacant time, motionless, descent into dormancy. “Old and dirty army
blankets.”
–
Setting in the creation of Atmosphere & Mood:
“Scars of giant bombs, their rawness already made a little natural by rain, seed,
and time.” p. 251
–
Cultural & Historical Circumstance Figure Largely in Fiction: Doctor
Jenkins says, “Perhaps I was impractical, but for myself, I do not regret…” Clash
of cultures; refined, civilized world of learning vs. post-war survivalist world.
Type 3 writing
• In a well organized paragraph, thoroughly explain
how one of the seven literary uses of setting (p.276
textbook) functions in “The Portable Phonograph”.
• FCAs
1. embed multiple short passages 5/-1
2. Box three college level word 6/-2
3. Three highlighted literary terms (setting
doesn’t count) 6/-2
Length? One page “ish” skipping lines.