The Shandean Issue (Spring-2006)

Ain Shams University
Faculty of Arts
English Department
A Semi-annual Academic Journal
By
Second Year Society



The Shandean Issue
No. 1 – Spring 2006

Editor: Ahmed Gamal

Associate Editor: Ahmed Adel

Editorial Assistants: Khalid Zahran, Walaa Yosry,
Marwa Talaat, Yasmine Esmail,
Mai Magdi

Art / Graphic Designer: Ahmed Adel

Contents

Contents

Topic
Editorial

ACADEMIC SECTION:

Hager Hamid & Nurhan Abd el-Rahman: Samira Moussa, the Nuclear Researcher
Mai Magdi & Yasmine Abd el-Wahab: The Greek Way to Western Civilization Saad Ezz El-Arab & Ahmed Fathy: Mimesis
Marwa Talaat, Walaa Yosry & Yasmine Esmail: World Postmodern Fiction (The Realist Tradition)
Fayrouz Fahmy, Marwa Sobhy, Ahmed Adel & Khalid Zahran: A Parodying Novel: Sterne’s Tristram Shandy
Soha Faried & Nada Tarek: The Revolt of Sterne

CREATIVE SECTION:

Ahmed Adel & Fayrouz Fahmy: When the Shandean Students Dream!
Mai Magdi & Walaa Yosry: Silly Questions: Mrs. Shandy Revolting
Maryam Mehanna: A Monologue
Heba Wageih: A Film Review: Walk The Line
Khalid Zahran: “My Lost Feather” – A Poem
Marwa Talaat: Caricature
Walaa Yosry: Caricature
Khalid Zahran: A Picture – “Best Comment” Competition

Miscellaneous:

Ahmed Gamal: Interview Practice Questions
Ahmed Gamal: A Check-list of Novel Extracts Analysis

An Announcement: Arts English Group Online

Editorial

The Shandean Instructor at Minia University

You, Tristram Shandy, were amazed at the French boasting about Paris:

EARTH NO SUCH FOLKS! ––– NO FOLKS E’ER SUCH A TOWN AS PARIS IS !

What would first strike your mind, if you come to see how we, Egyptians, boast about our Egyptian universities, especially those in Cairo???? Would you say then “The Egyptians have a gay way of treating every thing that is Great.” Another question jumps into the writer’s train of associated ideas: When you said “gay”, did you really mean “gay” or rather its opposite “spleen”, which you, a few lines later, stressed???? Generally speaking, the meaning intended by the writer, (Which writer: the Egyptian or the English/Irish one??), is left to our readers to guess.
…………………………………………………………………………!!!!
What a gorgeous, Eden-like scene! “Is this the Minia University campus?” I asked the security officer welcoming me at the front gate, and then addressed the question to my heart. I wandered and wondered at the greenness, the squash courts, the indoor gymnasium, the swimming pool, the stadium, the indoor athletic hall, the lecture halls, the exam halls, the huge central library, the hospitals, the medical centers, the farms, the long clean roads, …………………………………………………… the embracing faces, the saluting eyes ––– eyes of gentle salutations ––– and soft responses ––– speaking ––– whispering soft ––– “like the last low accents of an expiring saint.”
I must remind the reader that this is not a dream the writer has had while sleeping; it is stark beauty and reality. Reality, the last word of the last sentence, might be the point of departure for the present concluding paragraph (as the writer wonders whether to conclude or not). With a view to change our academic reality (of course into a better one), we present this pioneer students journal to the hearts and minds of our dear readers at the English department of the Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams University. In an attempt to activate our minds and set a “bridge” between our curricula and our dreams of a better Egyptian university and hence a better Egyptian society, we have done our best to combine both “instruction” and “entertainment” in the following academic, creative and miscellaneous sections of our first issue on Tristram Shandy.

I-Academic Section

I- ACADEMIC SECTION

I-I LIFE NARRATIVE ANALYSIS
The Shandean instructor initiated the novel course with training his Shandean students to apply tools of narratology to the analysis of real life stories, in an attempt to link the curriculum to something of this world in which they live. They were at first amazed and began asking each other “Is this a part of the course?? In which manner could it be represented in the exam??” Then, they began to realise the relevance and started offering interpretation of many life stories, some of which are those of Princess Diana and Assalam 98, the Egyptian Ferry Boat. The following is one of the stories that won a prize in a competition on the analysis of life stories; however, the prize has not been offered yet

I-I Samira Mousa The Nuclear Researcher

SAMIRA MOUSSA, THE NUCLEAR RESEARCHER

By
Hager Hamid & Nurhan Abd el-Rahman


Synopsis:

Samira Moussa – born on March 3, 1917, in Al-Gharbiya Governorate – was an outstanding Egyptian scientist. She was the only Egyptian to be given access to the secret laboratories in the United States as a pioneering nuclear researcher. Her mother went through a fierce battle against cancer and at last she died, so Samira Moussa sought to make nuclear treatment available for every one. She was the first “alien” to be allowed to visit the US secret atomic facilities. She turned down several proposals to be granted the U.S. citizenship and preferred to return home to pursue her dream of harnessing atomic power for peace and the welfare of all humanity. On August 5th, 1952, she was assassinated. In recognition to her efforts, she was granted many awards –abstract and concrete. Among them was the Order of Science and Arts, First Class, by late president Anwar el-Sadat and she was honoured by the Egyptian Army.


Action Units:

Exposition: Samira Moussa was the first Egyptian nuclear researcher given access to the secret laboratories in the USA.

Problem: Americans wanted her to work for them after she had gained a high degree of nuclear knowledge, and they did not want her to return to her country.

Climax: They offered her the US citizenship but she refused and decided to return to her motherland.

Resolution: She was assassinated.

Conflict: External: between American authorities and Samira Moussa.

Characters: Samira Moussa à Major and round character.

Public space: United States of America.

Time: Modern times – 1917-1952.

Narrative Voice : Third Person – Authorial.


Themes: Patriotism – struggle – self-achievement – mystery.

I-II Eighteenth Century Literary/Intelectual Background.

I-II EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LITERARY/INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND

Trying to place Sterne and his Tristram Shandy in context, the Shandean instructor traced the Western realistic and unrealistic tradition back to their origins in both Greek and Christian Culture. As usual, the Shandean instructor was misunderstood to be digressive rather than progressive, and later the point of juncture was figured out. The following notes on the Greek mind, Homer’s Odyssey, Biblical stories, and the heritage of realism in general represent the efforts of the Shandean students to help establish this point of juncture between eighteenth century realistic norms and unrealistic deviations on one hand and their genealogy in Western thought on the other hand.

The Greek Way To Western Civilization.

The Greek Way to Western Civilisation
Edith Hamilton

By
Mai Magdi & Yasmine Abd el-Wahab



CHAPTER ONE: EAST AND WEST:

1. The Beginning of the Greek civilization:
1.1. Hamilton talks about the great civilization and compares it to that of the ancient ages, and states it's effects on the Western mind and soul.
1.2. “Not merely Greece has a claim upon our attention because we “Europeans” are by our spiritual and mental inheritance partly Greek and at the same time we are influenced by the power “touching with light of reason and grace of beauty the wild northern savages”.


2. The Reason behind the Greek Achievements:

2.1. The reason behind the Greek achievements appears in the mental and spiritual activity. “When we find that the Greeks, too, lived in a reasonable world as a result of using their reason upon it, we accept the achievement as the natural thing that needs no comment”.



3. The Greeks are the First Intellectualists:

3.1. “The Greeks belong to the ancient world but they are in it as a matter of centuries only”, as in the ancient world you can find in every country the same “great priestly organisation to which is handed over the domain of the intellect, which is known now as the oriental state today” which contradicted that of the Greeks as they were the first intellectualists. “In a world where the irrational had played the chief role, they came forward as the protagonists of the mind”. So, “the modern spirit is the Greek discovery and the place of the Greek is the modern world”. “The world in which Greece came to life was one in which reason had played the smallest role.”


CHAPTER TWO: MIND AND SPIRIT:

4. The Athletic Contests:

4.1. The Greeks were the first people in the world to practice sports; all over Greece there were athletic contests of every description: horse races, music, dancing…etc.
4.2. These games are embodied in statues.
4.3. The Olympics were very important, when a game was held a truce of gods was proclaimed so that all Greece might come in safety.


5. The Greek spirit:

5.1. Inspite of her hard conditions, Greece rejoiced, resisted and turned full face to life.
5.2. The joy of life is written upon everything the Greeks left behind, and it is the key to understanding the Greek achievements.
5.3. The Greeks had physical vigor, high spirits and time, and they certainly enjoyed themselves.
5.4. “Love of reason and of life, delight in the use of the mind and body, distinguished the Greek way.”


6. The Greek Spirit through their Literature:

6.1. Their literature is marked by great sorrow.
6.2. Comedy and tragedy stood together in the Greek literature; there were no contradictions thereby.
6.3. Their joy was expressed in the early Greek lyrics as in Homer’s words.


7. Freedom in Greece:

7.1. Through all Greek history authoritarianism and submissiveness were not the direction it pointed to.
7.2. There is nothing that resembles a tyrannical ruler in Greece. Herodotus says in his account “they obey only the law”.
7.3. “The conception of the unimportance of the individual to the state has been replaced to the conception of liberty of the individual at a state in which he defends his own free will”.
7.4. “The right of a man to say what he pleased was fundamental in Athens; “a slave is he who can not speak his thoughts”, said Euripides.
7.5. After the bitter defeat of Athens and the gross mismanagement, Socrates was the only man in Athens who suffered death for his opinions. Three others were forced to leave the country. That’s the whole list which cannot be compared to the endless list of those tortured and killed in Europe during the last 500 years.


8. The Age of Reason in Greece:

8.1. “One of the earlier Greek philosophical sayings is that of Anaxagory: “all things were in chaos when mind arose and made order”.”
8.2. In the ancient world, Man was utterly at the mercy of what he must not try to understand, but the Greeks said “all things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set to thought.”
8.3. “All things are at odds when God lets a thinker loose on this planet” and they were loose. The Greeks were intellectualists; they had a passion for thinking.
8.4. “The Greeks had free scope for their scientific genius and they laid the foundations of our science today”.
8.5. The Greeks could never leave anything unanalyzed or unrelated; their poetry is built on clarity of ideas with plan and logical sequence.
8.6. “Since reason is divine in comparison to man’s whole nature, life according to reason must be divine in comparison with usual human life…the characteristic of any nature is that which is best for it and gives most joy. Such to man is the life according to reason, since it is this that makes him man.”


9. Art and Spirit:

9.1. Plato, as a typical Greek, said that there are men who have intuition, insight and inspiration that lead them to do beautiful things, they don’t know why they do it and so they cannot explain it to others.
9.2. The nature and conditions of the greek's life shut them off from the supremacy of the spirit, but they knew the way of the spirit no less. The proof of that is the fact that the flame of their genius burned highest in their art.
9.3. Greece means Greek art to us and that is a field in which reason doesn’t rule.
9.4. What marked the Greeks from the East was not an inferior degree of spirituality but superior degree of mentality. Socrates last talk with his friends before his death shows the control of feelings by reason, and the balance between spirit and mind which belonged to the Greek.

Mimesis

Mimesis
Erich Auerbach

The Representation of Reality In
Western Literature

By
Saad Ezz El-Arab & Ahmed Fathy



1. Realism in Homer’s Odyssey:

1.1. The epic represents the quintessence of realism in the sense that:
1.1.1. The syntactical connection between part and another is perfectly clear.
1.1.2. Time and place are well ordered and perfectly articulated.
1.1.3. The description of implements, ministrations and gestures are uniformed.
1.1.4. The whole work stands out in a realm where everything is visible and touchable.

1.2. The episode of Odysseus's scar is described in a very detailed way:
1.2.1. Action: A hunting accident in which he was wounded at a boar hunt.
1.2.2. Time: This accident occurred in Odysseus's boyhood during the time of his visit to his grand father "Autolycus".
1.2.3. Characterisation: This episode gives a full account of Autolycus, his house, the degree of relationship between them and his character. It also gives a record of Odysseus's recovery, his return to Ithaca and his parent’s anxious questions.
1.2.4. Narrative Scope: All is narrated, with such a complete externalization of all the elements of the story and of their interconnections as to leave nothing in obscurity.
i. Homer’s narration is for the time, the only present, and fills both the stage and the reader’s mind completely.
ii. Speech is to show, manifest and to externalize thought.
iii. Style is externalized, uniformly illuminated phenomena, at a definite time and a definite place, and thoughts and feeling are completely expressed.
iv. Homer’s reality is powerful enough in itself; it ensnares us, weaving its web around us. This real world exists for it contains nothing but itself and its uniqueness, in addition to the simplicity of the narration.
v. The Homeric poems conceal nothing; they contain no teachings and no secret second meanings. They are very unified.
vi. In homer life is enacted only among the ruling class, others appear only in the role of servants to that class. The social picture of the whole work is completely stable. Men’s life is divided between war, hunting, feasting, and market place councils, while women supervise the maids in the house.
vii. Homer’s epic represents domestic, daily life which is depicted in the phenomena of a fully externalized form, visible and palpable in all their parts, and completely fixed in their spatial and temporal relations.

2. Unrealism in Biblical Stories [Old Testament] e.g.: The Story of Abraham and Isaac:

2.1. Action:
2.1.1. The story begins with God’s calling Abraham and Abraham replies behold, here I am.
2.1.2. The reader is not informed what Abraham was doing when God called to him; it is left to obscurity as the same other elements.
2.1.3. We only hear God’s voice that utters nothing but a name, a name without an adjective and without a descriptive epithet for the person spoken to.

2.2. Characterisation:
2.2.1. Moreover, the two speakers are not on the same level. How can we conceive of Abraham? And how to picture him? As prostrate, kneeling or bowing or gazing upward.
2.2.2. While God and Abraham are simply named without mentioning any qualities or any other sort of identification. God says “take Isaac, thine only son, whom thou lovest” but this is not a characterisation of Isaac (part from being Abraham’s son) as a person; he may be handsome or ugly, intelligent or stupid, tall or short, pleasant or unpleasant.

2.3. Place:
2.3.1. This word is not meant to indicate the actual place where Abraham is. There is no clear identification for the two speakers. Where are they? The readers are not told, but they have the belief that they are not to be found together in one place on earth.
2.3.2. The action of the story is not stated whether indoors or in the open air.
2.3.3. The journey is made, because God has designated the place where the sacrifice is to be performed; so there is no identification of the place.


2.4. Time:
2.4.1. There is no identification of time: when does Abraham come, and when does God call Abraham?
2.4.2. We are told nothing about the journey except that it took three days. They began early on the morning. But at what time on the third day did Abraham lift up his eyes and see his goal? The text says nothing on the subject. As “early in the morning” is given, not as an indication of time, but for the sake of its ethical significance.


3. Conclusion:

3.1. Both styles exercised their influence upon the representation and investigation of reality in European culture.
3.2. The two styles in their opposition represent basic types of realism and unrealism.
3.3. On one hand, Homer’s realism is presenting a definite, complex of events whose boundaries of space and time are clearly delimited. His reality is displayed in the fully externalized description, uniform illumination, uninterrupted connection, free expression, all events in the foreground and unmistakable meaning.
3.4. On the other hand, the Biblical stories represent the suggestive influence of the unexpressed, background quality, multiplicity of meaning and the need for interpretation.

World Postmodern Fiction.

World Postmodern Fiction
Christopher Nash

By
Marwa Talaat, Walaa Yosry & Yasmine Esmail



The Realist Tradition:

1. Definition of Realism from different points of view:

1.1. Nash’s opinion: “Realism cannot properly be defined. There are many arguments that realism is about reality and reality is nothing more definable than ‘everything in human experience’.”
1.2. Rousseau’s opinion: The most extravagantly ‘unrealistic’ were the greatest realists... Rousseau said, “Every writer thinks he is a realist”, i.e., every writer conveys the reality from his own point of view as he sees it.
1.3. Sterne in his book On Realism says, “There is the realism of description”; a work of art provides “the serious representation of everyday reality” or the “realism of assessment”; realistic literature affords us a “reliable evaluation” of events in life.


2. Realism and History:

2.1. “Each age has its own different reality. Realism, then, changes; a work that is realistic for one culture eludes precise and accurate description as realistic for another.”


3. Ideas of Realism:

3.1. The world of realism should be represented as it is actually .This world is a complete, integrated system governed by some coherent scheme of rules.
3.2. If the world within the novel is semblance to the world already there, it should convince the reader because he might live in this world.
3.3. Realism should be clear because it fits the reader established experience but with the help of the narrator.
3.4. The world represented within a realist novel must be represented with respect to our everyday reality.
3.5. Realism gives “details of common typical average people and events… common language, common knowledge, common experience… no supernatural, no dragons, no paradise, no hell except those that may be accounted for by natural law… No kings and no queens unless they are basically like everybody else.”
3.6. “Realism is concerned with showing things in ‘the middle distance’… The realist attitude only makes sense and works in a world in which there are people, individuals of some degree of integrity and coherence of character”, says Sterne.


4. Realist Fiction:

4.1. Realist fictions have exact shapes that have no cracks and if any crack appears, it turns to be the character’s psychology. Realism then does not present a real world but presents real persons.


5. Content of Realism:

5.1. Realism is concerned with the single details of human being including their public, spiritual, political and sexual behavior and influence, also with wealth, property, and prestige of personal image.
5.2. As Sterne says, “‘symbolism’ must be eschewed… as a window a novel must appear unclouded by meaning of its own. Things are what they seem.”

I-III Tristram Shandy

I-III TRISTRAM SHANDY

“Nothing odd will do long,” said Dr Johnson; “Tristram Shandy did not last.” But Tristram Shandy has lasted, to be cherished in the century of Joyce and Rushdie even more than in the eighteenth century. The oddest thing about the novel is that in spite of the widely circulated remarks among students as well as staff concerning its “tough” nature, “lengthy” volumes, and “multi-layered” meanings, it has gained a quite wide range of popularity among second year students. This popularity might seem unconventional to the students themselves, since they have usually evaluated literary texts in terms of their final exam marks rather than in terms of the witty humour, joyful smiles and free, open discussions they have enjoyed while studying this novel along with the poor, funny Shandean instructor. The following section comprises some of the attempts of the Shandean students to capture Sterne’s revolt in terms of his unconventional form and their own revolt in terms of their unconventional reading.

A Parodying Novel:Sterne's Tristram Shandy

“A Parodying Novel: Sterne’s Tristram Shandy”
Viktor Shklovsky

In

Laurence Sterne: A Collection of Critical Essays
Ed. John Traugott

By
Fayrouz Fahmy, Marwa Sobhy,
Ahmed Adel & Khalid Zahran


1. The Disordered Structure of the Novel:

1.1. “Sterne was an extreme revolutionary” with regards to the general laws of novelistic form.
1.2. The impression of any reader who dares to read Sterne’s novel would be that “the novel is chaos.”
1.3. “When one begins to examine the structure of the book, one sees, first of all, that this disorder is intentional, that the work possesses its own poetics. It is all according to law.”
1.4. “In the book everything is displaced or transposed,” the best example of which is “the displacement of chapters 18 and 19 of Volume IX so that they follow chapter 25.” His motivation is, “to let people tell their stories in their own way.”
1.5. “Sterne used new methods; or, rather, employing old ones, he exposed their conventionality, blew the convention up, played with it.”


2. The Use of “Time-Shift”:

2.1. The “time-shift” in Sterne’s novel “is made obvious throughout the entire work” without a motivation.
2.2. “The ‘time-shift’… brakes whatever action may seem to be developing.”
2.3. “Sterne... simply lays bare his ‘time-shifts’ with no pretence of motivation from the story line.”
2.4. “Causes are given after effects, after deliberately implanted possibilities of false conclusions”, such as “the anecdote about the interruption of the sexual act (in which Tristram was begot) by Mrs. Shandy’s question.” The reader is left without an explanation of the significance of the mother’s question. “Only several pages later do we get the explanation of the strange punctiliousness of the father’s domestic habits.”


3. The Description of Poses:

3.1. “Sterne was the first to introduce descriptions of poses into the novel.”
3.2. “These poses are very strangely represented – more precisely, they are made strange.”
3.3. An example on this device is when Sterne described Mr. Shandy’s pose: “The palm of his right hand, as he fell upon the bed, receiving his forehead and covering the greatest part of both his eyes, gently sunk down with his head… till his nose touched the quilt.”




4. The Use of Motifs:

4.1. The novel is full of “heterogeneous material, laden with lengthy quotations from works of various pedants, [that] would have shredded the novel to bits had it not been held together by the motifs that run through it.”
4.2. The motif of the knots is one example of these motifs.
4.3. Another example is the motif of impotency; it opens the novel and concludes it.
4.4. “No single motif is fully developed and made real; the motifs merely reappear from time to time, and their realization is postponed into an ever-receding future.”
4.5. “Their presence throughout the full length of the novel holds its episodes together.”


5. Sentimentality:

5.1. “Sentimentality cannot be the content of art if not for no other reason than that art does not have a separable content.”
5.2. “Art is outside emotion.”
5.3. “‘Blood’ in art is not bloody; it rimes with ‘love’.”
5.4. “Art is… without compassion, or outside it, except in those instances when the feeling of commiseration serves as material for an artistic pattern.”
5.5. Sterne is beyond compassion as shown in the story of Bobby’s death; it is not presented in a tragic way.
5.6. Sterne used death to create a “misunderstanding – a common fictional device in which two people speak about different things while thinking that they are talking about the same thing.”


6. Digressions and Insertions:

6.1. “The materials introduced into the narrative by Sterne are not arbitrary; each fragment is relevant to some continuous strain in the novel’s composition.”
6.2. Sterne sometimes uses plot-shift for only one reason – “delay.”
6.3. The novel has a lack of “consecutiveness”. Its characteristic trait is precisely “the unusualness of the pattern of deployment often of its typical elements.”
6.4. Sterne uses the method of slowing down and the disruption of the normal plot scheme.

7. Endings of Sterne’s Novels:

7.1. “Nothing at all… motivates the conclusion of Tristram Shandy.”
7.2. Leaving the story unfinished is usual with Sterne.
7.3. “Such endings are… distinct stylistic devices varying according to requirements of particular stories.”
7.4. “Sterne worked against the background of the adventure novel with its firmly established form and its rule of ending the story with a wedding.”


8. Conclusion:

8.1. “It is commonly insisted that Tristram Shandy is not a novel.”
8.2. “Tristram Shandy is the most typical novel of world literature.”

The Revolt Of Sterne.

“The Revolt of Sterne”
A. A. Mendilow

In

Laurence Sterne: A Collection of Critical Essays
Ed. John Traugott

By
Soha Faried & Nada Tarek

1. Sterne’s Realism:

1.1. Sterne was very much interested in the relationship between reality and fictional illusion.
1.2. He urges his readers not to believe that these writing conventions are real.
1.3. He determined not to confine himself to any man’s rules.
1.4. Sterne’s aim was to give a true picture as possible of real human beings.
1.5. He must try to devise novel techniques and conventions to convey the illusion of simultaneity.


2. Sterne’s Structure & Characterisation:

2.1. Tristram Shandy gives the impression of being haphazardly constructed but in fact it is built according to a very deliberate plan.
2.2. Writers after Sterne followed his path in writing.
2.3. The analyses of characters such as Walter Shandy, Uncle Toby, and the rest come to illustrate the character and opinions of Tristram who, as autobiographer, is himself one of the novel’s characters.


3. Digressions:

3.1. Tristram Shandy includes numerous “digressions” and varied characters, incidents and its dates too. (Aunt Dinah’s lapse with the coachman in 1699 and the imprisonment of Trim’s brother by the inquisition in 1704).
3.2. Sterne is a careful and deliberate writer who constantly worked over his manuscripts until they satisfied him.
3.3. The naturalness of the chronological dating is impressive and times are slipped in the course of other matters.
3.4. Sterne neglects chronological order as he moves backward and forward in time.
3.5. He can create suspense by breaking off at some crucial moments and switching over to some other incidents.
3.6. According to Sterne, the general effect of novel must be the general effect that life makes on mankind.
3.7. Sterne commends himself as “a master-stroke of digressive skill” (Vol. I, Ch. 22)

4. Psychological Time:

4.1. Sterne is concerned with discrepancy between durations in terms of chronological and psychological time.
4.2. His true duration was measured by values not by the clock, according to the characters themselves and their thinking and feeling.
4.3. He played on several different kinds of time that operate in the novel… “It is about an hour and a half’s tolerable good reading since my uncle Toby rang the bill, when Obadiah was ordered to saddle a horse…”
4.4. He is also concerned with the distinction between chronological and psychological duration not only as it affects the reader but also as experienced by the characters and their sense of the passage of time. For example he said, “It is two hours, and ten minutes, –– and no more –– cried my father, looking at his watch, since Dr. Slop and Obadiah arrived, –– and I know not how it happens, brother Toby, –– but to my imagination it seems almost an age.”
4.5. Psychological durations allow Sterne to vary his tempo by the clock, he can at will convey a sense of urgency and hurry or of relaxation and suspense.
4.6. The episodes in the novel fall into two main categories: those incidents that are liked together by the association of ideas in the minds of the characters and those linked in Tristram’s mind.

II-Creative Section,II-I Essays:When Shandean Students Dream!

II- CREATIVE SECTION

II-I ESSAYS

When the Shandean Students Dream!

By
Ahmed Adel – Fayrouz Fahmy

Standing with each other – for there is always no place for them to sit down in their beloved college – he and his colleague (they are colleagues, you know; and we say colleagues to show that they are not friends – that kind of male-female friendship which is totally against our culture, traditions and religion) – were outside room number (…); well, it is not important to mention its number… it is just a room where they take their lectures – most of which, in fact, are tiresome (we mean the lectures); – he showed her, after drinking a cup of Nescafé – which he bought from Umm Tamer, for she makes an excellent cup of Nescafé that forces you to drink there forever… what were we saying? Ah! We were saying he showed her – Aaatsuh! Sorry for that sneeze; we have digression flu! – for, you know, it is The Shandean Issue, and Shandy is the father of digression… no! he is a digression himself! Are you asking yourself how we could sneeze at the same time? Do not bother yourself, dear reader, with such unimportant details! Oh God, we cannot finish the first sentence of this topic… Maybe the fault is in the paragraph! It would be better, an’ please your honours, to leave this paragraph and start another one!
Standing, as we told you, with each other, he showed her an e-mail he had received from a student in their English Department – which, by the way, she received from another student (oh, how small the world is!) – and began reading it. The e-mail was a short story. Do you want to know why he read the e-mail to her, although she already had it? Well, we do not know… If you know, please tell us! He started reading as follows: “He woke up that day full of energy…” “Your pronunciation is terrible!” she said. “Ok, you read, Miss American accent!” he replied a bit angrily. She began reading, “He woke up that day full of energy…” “Your pronunciation is musical!” he said. “Did ever young gentleman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a young lady with such a silly comment?” she exclaimed, looking angrily, though she was always very calm (but to be interrupted in that manner drives a person mad!). She would have noticed his blush, for sure, had his complexion not been as dark as a seven-year-old chimney! She continued (or rather started), “He woke up that day full of energy. Wearing his unique uniform, he went to his college – the Faculty of Arts, English Department – in a hurry to be on time. He entered the clean air-conditioned room where his section is, saluted his friends, whom he knew by name, each, and sat on a comfortable seat in front of an up-to-date computer . The punctual lecturer came exactly on time, and so did all the students – they were about a hundred students by the way. He enjoyed attending those lectures where learning is through multimedia; it is untraditional and makes education interesting. After the lecture, which was greatly explained, he went to meet his friend in the linguistics section – for he chose the literary section in his third year, because he adored literature – then went to attend the meeting held by a professor to give the students a feedback on their mistakes in his exam. He was in section “B”, which was for the intermediate and upper-intermediate students (they placed students in different sections according to their language skills: “A” for the excellent students and “C” for those who need to exert more effort to improve their language). He knew, of course, that he had got 45/50 in the Tristram Shandy part and 40/50 in the Pamela part, although they are considered as one subject and are combined in the same exam. He just wanted to know his mistakes – structure, ideas, selectivity… The novels were chosen by him, for they – in the department – gave him a list of suggested novels at the beginning of the term to choose from. After the meeting, he felt convinced that he got the mark he deserved. He went home without feeling exhausted, because there were at least an hour between a lecture and another, and because he did not use to have lots of lectures in a single day. He slept quietly, and had nice dreams…”

“What is all this story about?” she asked him. “What? Did you not take a Practical Criticism course?” he exclaimed. “Well, I did. I am with you in the literary section!” she answered. They were both in section “A” by the way. “Then, you must be able to pick out the theme of that short story, and pick out the underlying ideas, right?” he asked. She could not bear his attitude – though he was asking out of astonishment, not out of anger ,– tore the paper and left him!

Silly Questions: Mrs Shandy Rvolting.

Silly Questions:
Mrs. Shandy Revolting

By
Mai Magdi & Walaa Yosry

Women’s silly and serious questions (as different from men’s) are recurrent in all ages. From the eighteenth century till now some women have been posing these questions. In the eighteenth century women were not highly educated, and that is why they might be justified .Yet now in spite of the huge number of women emancipation movements and the “vindicated” rights of women, darkness still covers some of women’s minds. Some of their poor, silly questions are:

Do you like your wife to be like Britney Spears or Haifaa Wahby?

They are just as silly as Mrs. Shandy’s question interrupting the moments of love:

“Have you not forgotten to wind up the clock?”

Other girls also think superficially of other questions such as:

What kind of car should my husband have?

(Or why should not we have birds on the roof nowadays?)

Theses are similar to Mrs. Shandy’s question at the end of the novel:
“What is all this story about?” reflecting her stupidity all throughout.

On the other hand, many women have a wide scope of life and a logical thinking which are projected in their questions such as:

What do you think of women’s work?
Do you like your wife to be a prime minister?

In every society we have a “Mrs. Shandy” whom we must try to change and mend, as women, wives, mothers, sisters and friends, represent the backbone of our society.

A Monologue

A Monologue

By
Maryam Mehanna

Do I belong to this dull world? Or do I belong to another brighter planet? Does our society look at me as a person who could not share and have a normal life? Is our society interested only in appearances rather than reality? – Life is a STEP to Eternity – Do I belong to the ideal world of Plato?!

Mirror is the only truth which reflects real appearances without hypocrisy, and of course it cannot show the real soul. My lovely society is criticising me as a person who has a problem in appearance without ever giving esteem to my personality and also without realising my internal skills. – This vain look tears me – When will this gazing disappear?!

I will ask a question and I want an exact answer: “Does our society consider me as a disabled person?” Am I clear in this question? Truly, I do not see myself in such a manner, because I can think, share and work. I myself think that the disabled person is the one who is negative in his life and watches at what is happening in the world without sharing in anything. In such a case, he/she will be a burden to others. Am I right in my conclusion? Where is Truth? Is truth accessible to us? OR Do we not want to be shocked by it?

Can our world be an ideal one? This question gives me the opportunity to fly over the clouds and watch at our unpredictable world. When drops of rain stop, that does not mean that it will not rain again. Wiping our tears does not mean that we have forgotten our sadness. But, it means that we want to……….

Thanks a lot for reading it.

A Film Review: Walk The Line

A Film Review

Walk The Line

By
Heba Wageih.

Walk the Line, starring Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix, is an Academy Awards best actress and actor winning film for 2005. It is based on the true life story of Johnny Cash since his childhood till his marriage to June Carter. It is a biopic that attempts to comprehensively tell Johnny Cash’s life story or at least the most historically important years of his life. It depicts his hatred towards his alcoholic father that affected him since his childhood and helped in forming this legend. It also focuses on the time when Johnny cash joined the air force, where he composed his first song “Folsom Prison Blues”. It also deals with the husband-wife relationship. It also dramatises Johhny’s first audition in an extraordinary scene. The movie sheds light on love among the members of June Carter’s religious family. It also deals with the love story of Johnny Cash and June Carter, and how it drove Johnny Cash to addiction to forget about his miserable life. It also sheds light on religious ideas like forgiveness and divorce.
“Walk The Line” is a title of one of Johnny Cash's songs. It is about Cash staying faithful to his wife whereas she is on the road: I find it very, very easy to be true / I find myself alone when each day is through / Yes, I’ll admit that I’m a fool for you / Because you’re mine / I walk the line. Along the whole movie we find a collection of Johnny Cash’s wonderful songs. Every song in the movie represents a period of his life. “Folsom Prison Blues” represents his childhood growing up in a prison, as he grew up with an alcoholic father in the house which led him to shut himself up in his room and listen to music.
The movie takes place in Folsom prison in the year 1956, where Johnny was at the back stage staring at an electric saw. From this moment on the action starts to develop in a flash back, and it takes us to the year 1936 to Arkensas, where Johnny Cash spent his miserable childhood starting by the horrific death of his older brother Jack in 1944. Time passed on and he joined the air force and left to Germany. Then he fell in love in 1954, married Vivian and lived with her in Tennassee. There he started his singing career when he recorded his first record . From this point he started touring. He met June Carter and fell in love with her ; he tried about forty times to propose to her in many different ways but she refused. Along the tour he also started his addiction , but with the help of June and her family he regained control on his life. And finally in the year 1968 he married June Carter after she accepted his proposal while they were singing “Jackson”. Then we return back to the present moment in Folsom prison, where the movie ends in a wonderful scene that I will talk about later in details.
Johnny cash lived suffering all his life because of his father, who always blamed him for not being there when his brother had his fatal accident. There was an internal conflict within him: he always felt guilty for his brother’s death. On Thanks Giving day he confronted his father and asked him where he was when Jack had the accident, but as usual his father put him down. He was an out-cast from his family. June Carter, too, was an out-cast but from society, because she was a divorced mother. She suffered a lot from people’s talk, and this may be the reason that in every time Johnny proposed to her she refused . That was also the cause of her internal conflict. Religion played a great role in their lives. Johnny knew every single word in the Holy Gospels and had the talent that helped him to sing them all, just like his mother. While June’s religious family taught her compassion and mercy to help the miserable people, they were the main reason that she helped Johnny when he lost everything. June was a very responsible passionate mother, while Johnny was an addict irresponsible father.
The brilliant ending scene brings us back to reality, to Folsom prison in the year 1956. He was dressed up all in black and he looked like he “was going to a funeral”. He was indeed going to the funeral; he was putting an end to his past life in which he was imprisoned for years. On stage he holds up a cup of yellow dirty water that the prisoners drink; it symbolises the worst that could ever happen in life. He says, “I thank God that I do not have to drink this water that you drink” then throws it away and breaks it into pieces; he is telling them to hold on and wait – salvation will come soon with God’s mercy and forgivness.
I think that the power of love together with the presence of the alcoholic father in Johnny Cash’s life controls the whole development of the action. When Johnny was still a child, he badly wanted to get out of the house where he lived with the beast – his alcoholic father – ; as soon as he got the opportunity to leave he did and joined the air force, for his house was lacking the loving father-son relationship. When he was married to Vivian, he was motivated by her love to work hard and make her happier and more comfortable ; when problems started to increase between them, he again tried as hard as he could to engage himself with the tour. This is also clear when he first saw June Carter and fell in love with her ; he tried proposing to her several times , but on every time his proposal was refused, he shifted to drugs to forget his miserable life. Yet June’s loving family, out of religious beliefs, were trying with all their heart to help Johnny get out of his crisis. They believed that God is merciful and forgiving, so they helped him. At the end Johnny was rewarded by marrying the love of his life, June Carter. She was also rewarded with a good loving husband whom she loved, a reward for her mercy towards him and for helping him when he was an addict. It’s only when both of them started to get closer to God and “walk the line” that they were awarded by what they wanted.
Finally, I see that the movie Walk the Line deserves to be an Academy Awards winning movie, as both Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix did their best in the movie. They both took vocal courses; and Reese Witherspoon learnt to play the autoharp to dramatise the life of this legend in its most perfect way they can. In addition, James Mangold, the director, successfully tackled chronologically all of Johnny Cash’s life from his childhood till his marriage to June Carter. I admit that I did not know Johnny Cash before watching this movie – which is something I should be ashamed of – as I was never introduced to know such a legend. The movie was successful: I know him now!

I-II POETRY

My Lost Feather:

Composed By:
Khalid Zahran, April 20, 2006

Where have you been, my lost feather?
To the moon? Where all is lost forever,
Or to the sun? Oh, have I lost you? Never.
Searching for you I have launched
Immortal sea trip that not diminished
To Arabia and even to the West
The search was raving, farewell unkisst.
In Mexico, in Spain
I remember you with pain
In Germany and Japan
I dream of you in Oman
Even in Cairo
The same scenario
Alas, you live in mind
And alas, I need nothing to remind
I cannot forget
Longing pushed me out of resist
And as a human I need to rest
But my heart gives in at last.

II-III Pictures

II-III PICTURES

Caricature

By
Marwa Talaat

Caricature 2

Caricature

By
Walaa Yosry

Best Comment

A Picture

Best Comment will be rewarded

Prepared By
Khalid Zahran

III-I Mecellaneous,III-I Interview Practice Questions.

III- MISCELLANEOUS

III-I INTERVIEW PRACTICE QUESTIONS

Compiled By
Ahmed Gamal

1- What attracted you to this organisation?
2- What do you bring to this job/this organisation?
3- What has been a major challenge for you as a manager?
4- Tell me about a time when you have successfully used your leadership skills.
5- How have you developed yourself as a leader?
6- What kinds of relationships have you developed with clients and customers?
7- How do you go about making new relationships/maintaining relationships with clients and customers?
8- Tell me about a time you’re proud of when you won some new business by influencing a client or a customer.
9- What do you find is the best way to get things done?
10- What motivates you?
11- What’s the most significant impact you’ve made in your work over the last year?
12- What’s been your most challenging project? followed by What difficulties did you meet? followed by How did you overcome them?
13- What projects has your team undertaken and seen through which have been your own idea?
14- Do you tend to focus on procedure or results?
15- Are you serious about taking a drop in salary?
16- How do you organise your work?
17- How do you plan your day at work?
18- How do you manage staff?
19- Tell me about a time when you’ve had to deal with an angry client/customer face to face/on the phone/using written communication.
20- Tell me about a time when you’ve resolved a difficult situation at work.
21- Tell me about a time when you have had to take a flexible attitude to your work.
22- What changes have you experienced at work?
23- How do you use IT to help you manage information?
24- How do you like to be managed?
25- What sorts of things do you like to delegate?
26- How do you work in a team, what is your role?
27- Tell me how you typically approach a new piece of work.
28- What have you learned in your present job?
29- What kinds of decisions do you find it difficult/easy to make?
30- How do you get the best out of people?
31- How do you keep track of everything you are responsible for at work?
32- Tell me about a time when you have had to manage conflicting deadlines.
33- Tell me about a time when you have had to work under pressure.
34- Tell me about a situation where you have needed to influence someone to your way of thinking.
35- What kinds of work have you found satisfying?
36- What do you do best in your current job?
37- What do you think are the benefits of teamwork?
38- What do you like least about your current job?
39- Tell me about a time when you have had to assess and manage risk.
40- Describe a situation where you used strategic thinking to achieve an objective.
41- Why do you want this job?
42- Tell me about a time when you had to take the lead and tell others what to do.
43- How do you go about making decisions?
44- Do you prefer handling practical or theoretical issues?
45- Tell me about a time when you had to bend or break the rules.
46- Tell me about a time when you had to stick to the rules.
47- How do you deal with repetitive, routine tasks?
48- Describe a situation where you had to explain to someone that he/she is wrong; followed by What was the outcome?
49- Describe a time when you have had to deal with criticism at work.
50- Tell me about a situation where you had to take a short-term/long-term view.
51- How do you sell your ideas to clients/colleagues?
52- Tell me about a time when you had to deal with other people’s views and feelings.
53- How have you developed yourself professionally?
54- Describe a situation when you accepted a majority decision although you held a different opinion.
55- Tell me about a time when you had to be meticulous over detail.
56- When have you had to critically analyse information?
57- How do you go about setting yourself targets?
58- What original ideas have you come up with in your current job?
59- What work would you like to be doing in 5 years’ time?
60- What kind of colleague do you think you are?
61- What kinds of colleagues do you like working with?
62- What have people done that you found unhelpful? How did you respond?
63- What have you done that others have found unhelpful?
64- (For jobs which involve a lot of travel or off-site working) How have you organised/managed your work to cover long/frequent periods of being away from your desk?

III-II Check-List Of Novel Extracts Analysis.

III-II CHECK-LIST OF NOVEL EXTRACTS ANALYSIS
(With Special Reference to Tristram Shandy)

Prepared By
Ahmed Gamal


1- Action: Complication – Climax – Resolution.
Tristram’s Life Story: Conception – Birth – Childhood – Adulthood (Journey to France).
External Digressions: Yorick’s Story – Diego’s Story – Le Fever’s Story – Uncle Toby’s Amorous Story with Widow Wadman.
Internal Digressions: Intertextuality – Historical Allusions.


2- Themes: e.g. Impotence – Contingency/Misfortune – Miscommunication – Fall & Decline – Sentimentalism.


3- Motifs: e.g. Names – Noses – Whiskers – Hobby-Horses – Don Quixote – Time/Duration – Knots – Trains of Thoughts – Sermons- Excommunication.


4- Characterisation:

Character Type:

Hero: Tristram Shandy.
Major: Walter Shandy – Toby Shandy.
Minor: Mrs. Shandy – Dr. Slop – Trim – Obadiah – Susannah – Parson Yorick – Widow Wadman.
Foil: Yorick – Toby – Diego.

Characterisation Technique:

Explicit: Narrative comment.
Implicit: Appearance – speech – action – others opinions – Thoughts (Associations: Source: [Ideas – Impressions – Words] Logical Link: Place – Time – Resemblance – Contiguity – Contrast – Causation).


5- Time:

General Time Reference: (Age (modern) – Century).
Specific Time Reference: (Year – Season – Month – Day)
Tense: Past – Present – Future.
Tense Switch: (Change of Perspective – intensification – distancing).
Flashback - Flasforward


6- Space:

Public Space Reference: (Country – City – Countryside).
Private Space Reference: (House – Room – Chamber – Chair – Desk).
Open Space Reference: Desert – Sea – Inland.
Closed Space Reference: Cottage – Hospital.
Spatial Opposites: City vs.Country – Civilization vs. Nature – Transitional Space vs. Permanent Space.
Deictic Orientation: Near & Far – Here & There – Left & Right – Come & Go.
Semantically Charged Space: Emotive Connotations (Gloom/Grey: Tragic – Sunny/Spacious: Hopeful).


7- Narrative Situation:

First-person Narrative: Pronouns.
Experiencing “I”: (Narrator as Character).
Narrating “I”:
Phatic Function (Maintaining contact with the Addressee) e.g. “good folks”, “you must know”.
Apellative Function (Persuading the adressee to believe or do something) e.g. “this is not so inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it… Well, you may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man’s sense or his nonsense, his success and miscarriages in this world depend upon their motions (animal spirits)” p. 1.
Expressive Function (Expressing his/her own views/emotions) e.g. Tristram’s view of Yorick “I have the highest idea of the spiritual and refined sentiments of this reverned gentleman.” p. 15.
Metanarrative/Reflexive Comments (Commenting on his novel-writing) e.g. “I have begun the history of myself in the way I have done; and I am able to go on tracing everything in it, as Horace says, ab ovo.” p. 4.


8- Style:

Parody: Exaggeration – the application of a serious tone to an absurd subject (e.g. “May he (Obadiah) be damned field, wherever he be, –––– whether in the house or the stables, the garden or the or the highway, or in the path, or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church.”
Humour: A statement or situation that causes laughter (Tristram’s Conversation with the donkey).
Satire: The use of laughter to attack its objects, whether a person or a type. (e.g. The nuns and religious controversies in Diego’s story).
Figures of Speech: metaphor, simile, personification.
Verbal Irony: to state something and to mean the opposite. e.g. “I know no more of Calais than I do this moment of Grand Cairo.”