A10 MIDTERM. DUES BACK ON THE ASSIGNMENTS
TAB BY 11:59PM ON Wednesday, October 8, NO CLASS
ON OCT. 8
Due Wednesday by 11:59p.m.
Points 100
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MIDTERM A10. PROFESSOR LEONARD.
Length: 1750 to 2250 words
posted in the Assignments tab on Friday Oct. 3 at 5pm,
-due back on the Assignments tab Wednesday, October 8, 11:59pm]
Late midterms will be “locked out” of the Assignment tab. They may still be emailed to me at
[leonardgarry@hotmail.com], with a brief explanation; they will be docked one point the first day, two
points the second, three points the third day. Get them in on time!
Important tip: Don’t wait until 11:50pm on the 8 to start trying to upload!
Sometimes it takes a few tries.
MIDTERM PROMPT:
We have discussed the transition from SOUL TO SELF. That is to say, the transition from:
-a consciousness organized around the concept of an eternal/sacred "soul"-, connected to an
omniscient (all knowing) and transcendent God (transcendental certitude)
-- which transitioned to the development of a modern secular/materialistic "self" that seeks to secure
satisfactions in a secular world of uncertain realities.
This sets up what I have called THE VAMPIRIC RELATIONSHIIP OF SELF TO OTHER
This shift from SOUL to SELF is intertwined with a shift from an “Age of Faith” as the dominat discourse
to an “Age of Science” as the dominant discourse.
This is also a shift from
-a loss of transcendental certitude,
-to a secular empiricism of “provable facts”.
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Certitude is no longer assumed to be at some transcendental, God-like level; it is now sought in
the inner-workings of the secular world. Reality based on morality (the soul’s proximity to God),
shifts to instrumental reality—what can be measured by the self, in ceaseless pursuit of an
elusive satisfaction that is, in fact, unachievable (the PEPSI myths).
The extraction of energy/resources from others, to shore up the self, is MIRRORED in the
structure/dynamic of capitalism/imperialism, which also extracts resources (ivory, rubber, oil, or
cobalt in the Congo, for example) to enrich itself, also at the expense of others (the native Congolese in
the case of Heart of Darkness).
Mass production, mass consumption and mass advertising all combine to offer a new equivalent of the
sacred object: the commodity. Commodities are configured as an offering to the insatiable “self”.
This configuring employs what I have called the continually deferred PEPSI myths: Perfection,
Efficiency, Progress, Satisfaction, and Innovation. All of these myths mimic “transcendental
certitude” by promising perfection, progress, etc. in the secular, self-based world, but they also do this
in a way that makes everything seem perpetually just out of reach, leading to an unprecedented
increase of depression and anxiety, often self-medicated with a reliance on addictive substances
(drugs and alcohol certainly, but also gambling, sex, social media, excessive shopping leading to
debt—any activity that offers a brief compensation, followed by an increase in dissatisfaction).
All the works we have read so far, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, wrestle with this dynamic.
*Using the quotes below as your evidence (no need for outside sources), discuss/illustrate how this
overview I have outlined above is reflected in these quotes.
*You do not need to cite page numbers.
*If you borrow a phrase from the lectures simply preface it with “as Professor Leonard noted in lecture”
(note: quoting from my lectures is NOT required).
*The Teaching Assistants have seen the same tapes of the lectures that you have. Therefore, assume
familiarity with the material on their part, and do not “summarize” the material, unless it is DIRECTLY
related to what you are saying about one of the four quotes.
* You may GESTURE to other moments in the texts, other than the quotes given, but do so sparingly,
and make sure you are only doing so in order to further the discussion you are already having, about the
quotes you have been given.

Remember, there is no one “right” answer, only more or less persuasive ones. You will be
evaluated on how persuasively you
* show an understanding of the ideas in the prompt
*by relating them to the four quotes
Some tips:
*It is expected this midterm will take, in total, approximately three hours to complete. The multiple days
you have been given to download and then upload you answer is a “window” in which to find that
time.
*AI (ChatGPT) is not permitted, and, be warned, it gives very poor answers to a midterm prompt like this.
*Also don’t use “revision software” such as GRAMMERLY. The result, even if you submitted work
you wrote to GRAMMERLY, will read as 100 percent AI generated. Grammerly is a business tool and is
useful for cleaning up awkward emails or status reports, but it “flattens out” interpretive texts, often
editing out the thesis in pursuit of more “efficient” (the myth of efficiency!) prose.
*Be sure to be concise and come to your point quickly. The TAs are evaluating more than 80
responses each. Don’t make it hard for them to find your main points.
--Stay alert for opportunities to
-restate your case more clearly,
-as your argument develops,
-by taking the time to re-read and revise.
-Sometimes your best introduction to what you are trying to say will not occur to you until later in
your writing process.
*Connect each point you discuss from the prompt to something specific in one or more of the
quotes.
*In addition to showing what all the quotes may have in common, look for opportunities to
differentiate between them as well.
*This is not, strictly speaking, a “composition class” so the emphasis is on your argument, more than
your grammar/syntax/sentence structure. Of course, proficiency in these areas help you clarify your
point, but the emphasis, for evaluation purposes, is on your discussion as a whole.
* I instruct the TAs to determine the relative quality of the essays (what is A-range, what is B-range) with
reference to all the other essays submitted by the class. In other words, there is no “transcendent” idea
of an “A” paper—Rather, “A” papers will be those that do the best job (top 15 or 20% of the class)
interweaving the ideas from the prompt with various quotes, showing, in the process, how the readings
reflect crises/conflicts of modern times, and how they create challenges and give us greater access to
our sense of ourselves, others, and the world around us.

Think of this MIDTERM as an INVITATION to explore what you have learned so far.
TIP to get started: what would you say to a friend who saw one of the quotes and asked you “what does
this mean, and why does this matter?” Your answer to that friend (real or imagined) is a starting point for
building up your response to the midterm.

FOUR QUOTES. YOU MUST DISCUSS ALL FOUR.

QUOTE ONE
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
“Dover Beach”, Matthew Arnold

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QUOTE TWO
“You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. My God! how mad I was to love you! What a
fool I have been! You are nothing to me now. I will never see you again.
I will never think of you. I will never mention your name. You don't know what you were to me, once.
Why, once . . . Oh, I can't bear to think of it! I wish I had never laid eyes upon you!
You have spoiled the romance of my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your
art! Without your art, you are nothing.”
Dorian Gray to Sibyl Vane, The Picture of Dorian Gray

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QUOTE THREE
“One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say a little tremulously, ‘I am lying here
in the dark waiting for death.’ The light was within a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, ‘Oh,
nonsense!’ and stood over him as if transfixed.
“Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope
never to see again. Oh, I wasn’t touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw
on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror—of an intense and
hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that
supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he
cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:
“‘The horror! The horror!’
“I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The pilgrims were dining in the mess-room, and I took my place
opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored.
He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his meanness.
A continuous shower of small flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces.
Suddenly the manager’s boy put his insolent black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing
contempt:
“‘Mistah Kurtz—he dead.’
“All the pilgrims rushed out to see. I remained, and went on with my dinner. I believe I was considered
brutally callous. However, I did not eat much. There was a lamp in there—light, don’t you know—and
outside it was so beastly, beastly dark. I went no more near the remarkable man who had pronounced a
judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth. The voice was gone. What else had been there?
But I am of course aware that next day the pilgrims buried something in a muddy hole.
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
QUOTE FOUR
THERE WAS NO hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night after night I had passed the house
(it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it
lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought, I would see the reflection of
candles on the darkened blind for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had
often said to me: “I am not long for this world,” and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were
true. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always
sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the
Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with
fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work.
James Joyce, “The Sisters,” from the collection Dubliners

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