Silence of the Lambs and a thanks for a great semester

Hi Doctor Ealy,
I'm not sure if you'll get this but I had been thinking about what we had brought up in our last class (prior to the writing workshop) about different grail quests and I happen to have just finished up a paper on The Silence of The Lambs by Jonathan Demme. It struck me that if you look at the film without the killing etc. it very closely parallels the grail quest we find in Small World, Buffalo Bill (the killer on the loose) seeks to transfigure himself while Clarice Starling seeks to become an FBI agent. All of the characters seek something and it just reminded me a lot of the conversation we had had in class and the literary story of Small World. Especially the ending where Hannibal Lecter is seen on the loose once more, creating the same (never) ending that was in both Perceval and Small World. I would like to thank you for a great semester and for helping to get me transitioned into college. I hope you have a great winter break.

Thank you for your time,
Thomas Keegan

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

1) I would like to speculate a little as to the title of the film. It's fascinating that the movie would steer away from the original grail legend and move on to the tales of the crusades, however it does make sense because the grail legend was mixed into the crusades. This makes sense to me because if there was a grail search today it would more than likely involve the latest grail search, which would have been the search's done during the crusades. All-in-all I believe the title of the film as "The Last Crusade" may be more due to the fact the writers used mostly crusades lore when writing the movie although I find it fascinating that a few of the ideas of Perceval made it into the movie.

2) The ideas that made it out of Perceval are many in number although there are a few major ones that I would like to point out. One is the entire idea of the grail being "unattainable", while the Jones do find the grail and drink from it they lose it in the end. It heralds the Perceval legend by never allowing the world to truly grasp the grail. The other interesting parallel is the use of numbers in order to present clues, for instance Jones Jr. found the second knights tomb in the library by using the numbers on the wall.

Day four Small World Pt 4-5

Describe Persse and his actions towards the end of this story.

Persse seems to be very confused and although he persues Angelica to no end he seems to switch to Cheryl, persuing her with just as much intent. I think it's safe to say that Persse found out the truth about his original grail and decided to switch it for a new one that looks ever so brighter. "the grass is always greener on the other side" seems to be the words Persse lives by, he thinks the academic world of confrences, for instance, is so amazing before he really jumps into it but then he finds the perverted and often crazy people to be not what he expected.

small world day 3 pt. 3

make your own question's
1) sex, while present throughout the book, has taken a literary grandstand in part three. Why do you think this is?

A) Persse was never really introduced to the world of sex and pornography, so as Persse becomes more and more familiar with the art of making little kids so does the reader. It's sort of a "pants off" coming of age.

2) many quests are introduced here to various characters, pick one. Discuss what it means to the character, to the story, and how it relates to the other texts we have discussed.

A) Persse has self proclaimed the quest of finding, and perhaps saving, his (not so) fair maiden Ms. Lilly. As in other texts he is willing to do anything to fulfill his task, even spend his thousand dollar prize in the pursuit of this maiden. It must be said that perhaps, due to the parrallels between Persse and Perseus, this story will never end. Will he ever be happy? Will he ever find his "grail"? If this maiden is truly his grail then maybe he will never find her again but will fruitlessly search the world of scholars only to find that while he may not get the girl he does gain a little something.

small world pt. 2

1) What is the role of Cheryl Summerbee as matchmaker? where have we seen this before?

Cheryl Summerbee is a very interesting character in that she is very much like the matchmaker Celestina, the way that the two are connected is that they are almost opposites. This seems to be a theme of this story, clashing ideals such as the continuing conflict between deconstructionism and structuralism. In the text Cheryl plans on staying virtuous while Celestina plans out the opposite in every way. Cheryl also matches people based on the good and the bad while Celestina simply looks at the lust of each person and figures out how best to get them both in bed together.

2) We meet several new characters, almost all unfaithful, who may just be parallels between other characters we've met. Describe a couple of these new characters and their connection to the other texts we've read.

For one we have the silly, yet stupid, Howard Ringbaum who managed to get tricked into believing that he could join the mile high club by simply doing his wife in midair. There is also the greatly respected english teacher who (like the monks in the Decameron) is secretly doing a young girl even though he is old and really unable to do much in the way of love.

Perceval Day 3 (460-499)

4) We know of Chretien that he follows what he likes and what he believes the audience likes, therefore I believe that he realized that in order to make this story into a plausible and enjoyable story he needed to add the story of Gawain. Gawain is a recognizable name in that we see it repeated in many of Chretien's tales, it can almost be said that he is a more famous person and gives the people reading this a familiar face. But more than that I believe it adds credibility to Perceval and the grail quest because Gawain manages (we suspect we don't know as the story ends so abruptly) to introduce Kig Arthur and his court into the mix and really get them involved.
5) The thing that makes the least sense to me is that Chretien leaves off mid-sentence. It seems to me that any writer creating a work of art such as this would take the care to at least finish the sentence before stopping. It's for this reason that I believe that there is more of a reason behind his actions than just the fact he died, he did after all manage to complete his thought within the sentence. There may have been no ending but I believe that we can determine the ending based on the rest of Chretien's works. I think Chretien knew he was dying and left off here for that reason, he knew that he would not be able to give us the whole story so he instead gave us just enough to be able to give the story our own ending and little enough so that the ending is still determined for us.

Perceval Day 2 (419-460)

1) Blancheflor, or white flower, is a very symbolic type of person. Her name stands for two thing, white often stands for purity while the flower stands as something delicate or untouched, almost innocent in a way. She resists the knights advances and goes no further than a kiss and feeding the knight.

2) Perceval is literally shown the grail and yet he has no idea what he's looking at, he sits at the table with all of this magic and weirdness surrounding him and he says nothing. He asks not of the lord's injuries and he asks nothing of the bleed lance, but most importantly he asks nothing about the golden grail that is being passed around and nothing as to why it was carried into the room with an honor guard. There where a million white flags, and as we find out, if he had asked a question of the lord than he would have saved the lord and made him great once again.