You might think about the questions: What questions about the self and about identity are raised by this story? What does the story suggest about the relationship between language and self? How might the story be understood as expressing a person's alienation from himself? How does might the strange imagery be seen as metaphorical, symbolic, and/or suggestive? (Be particular. I'm really curious as to what you think.) How does the piece both make use of and subvert sci-fi conventions? Why do you think Kelly has written in this manner? Close read a passage what is suggested? As a whole what is suggested? And, perhaps more importantly, what was the piece's affect on you? Can you explain how it had that effect?
You might respond analytically by showing the relationship between how it's written and what it means. You might evaluate the story: does it succeed in what it seems to try to do? Do you like it? Respond to the short story personally: can you relate? How? Compare the story to others you've read. You might think about As I Lay Dying and King Lear (or other literary works or films). Respond by extending the story in someway: a sequel and prequel. Write a letter or poem or script in response.
Show that you have read the story, have thought about it, and have understood something about it (or even have made of use of it in some way).
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I’m not exactly sure when Mr. Cook was expecting us to post on these short stories or what he was looking for specifically but I’ve got a lot on my plate right now so I’m going to at least start working on this assignment.
One thing that struck me about this story was the mixture of “science fiction” imagery with more primitive imagery. The selection of details like the “fractured black obsidian they found and then flaked even sharper on a harder stone” and the leaf “they stuffed… into his mouth that instantly took most of the pain away” recall human tribal life. I think that Robert Kelly may be suggesting that this investigative ritual is something primal, maybe even instinctual. There is also an obvious lack of seriousness in this ritual: it is accidental (“they had not expected to find one this particular night”), it is haphazard (“and when they pulled the liver out slimy with blood, they shoved a live hawk in its place”), and it is somehow humorous (“they told me they used a shoe for my heart and they laughed”). This is all juxtaposed with the perceived seriousness of “examining the soul” and the characterization of the aliens as superior beings – “traveling philosophers.” This could immediately be taken as a metaphor for the cruel enjoyment that humans find in critically “dissecting” their inferiors. Or it might possibly point to a more sinister motive underlying psychoanalysis and criticism (which may only be veiled by superficial “scientific” motives).
I wondered for a while about what the symbolism of the particular items that the aliens use to replace the subject’s organs might be. Why did the author choose these specific items? However, I think you could puzzle over the significance of replacing a sternum with a “postcard from Bolzano in northern Italy,” but I think the objects are purposely random. I think Kelly is suggesting that the human body is ultimately unimportant junk. That a person can be reproduced just from any random assortment of parts. This interpretation begs the question (and I think it was one that Kelly wanted us to consider): what really constitutes a person? When you go taking things out of a person and replacing them with other things, at what point is it someone else? Or, another possibility: these objects represent the little idiosyncratic things that go into making a person (the selection of very personal images like the postcard makes me think this).
Michael McGovern
What I first noticed about this story is that it relates to As I Lay Dying in many ways. Both stories have the italicized writing that seem to show the speaker’s deep and private thoughts. In How They Took My Body Apart as well as As I Lay Dying, the italicized passages seem to be filled with much more personal language and show what the person is truly thinking. Another similarity between the two stories is how they are both told using different perspectives. However, in How They Took My Body Apart, the perspectives are told from the same person at different times in his life, which differs from Faulkner’s use of different characters telling the story in As I Lay Dying. One perspective shows how the narrator feels at the exact moment the aliens are taking his body apart, while the other perspective is him looking back and reflecting on it. There is even a possible third perspective in the story because in the beginning part of the story. At first, the narrator uses words such as “he” and “him” when referring to the boy, making the story be told in the third person. It isn’t until later that the narrator begins using the first person to describe his experience. Another similarity between the two stories is the motif of trying to find something/yourself. In As I Lay Dying, each character was trying to find something for themselves on their trip in addition to burying Addie. Whether it be teeth or an abortion, each member of the Bundren family sets their sights on something that they need to find. In How They Took My Body Apart, the narrator seems to be looking not for a material object, but for his inner self and find his true identity. In the story, aliens cut open the boy and remove his organs trying to find his soul. Throughout the operation, the boy is trying to give his definition of a soul and what it is to him. This seems to show that he is trying to figure out his identity and discover who he really is. This is best exemplified at the end of the story when the boy lies naked on the floor and covers himself because he doesn’t want anyone to see him before he “had figured it out.” This shows that he is not yet comfortable with whom he is and he needs to discover and find himself before he can let others see him.
My highlighter found it's place in a few parts of this book, mainly parts that referred to sounds and the integrity of words. Like Mike i did think that this book really did resemble As I Lay Dying in a few facets. There seemed to be a bit of “Darl-ing” When looking at words, and seeing how they come together and what makes them what they are. There’s a whole few sentences on the sounds of indigo and such. This seemed to make sense for aliens who are experiencing words and language for the first time, to break down words into sounds to help them understand better, but it also brings a question to us. Where do our words come from, and what do they mean?
Alex, part of me wonders how random these items actually are. They do explain (‘they’ being the aliens) why they replace the heart with a shoe. For me, thinking like an alien…it makes a little sense. Also, replacing a liver with a Hawk reminds me of the myth of Prometheus, who was chained to a rock and had an eagle pick out his liver every day for forever. Little things like these can probably be the reasons behind why Robert Kelly had such obscure objects placed in the body, to see where our bodies are connected to by culture.
This story, it seems, might be a discovery about culture, now that I think about it. The aliens are not only looking for the soul, but they want to see the affects of WORDS on a soul Words and language are culture, as is different things, items we can see re-occurring in the body. (hawk as the liver, the postcard is the sternum, which is held over the heart…) Although many things do seem random…I’d like to maybe discover more on this.
How They…Made Another Me was really interesting, simultaneously confusing and terrifying. The most significant existential anxiety came from a passage that I thought was an alien speaking. “the solace of a mountain” passage was my favorite. The fear of it falling. I didn’t even understand it, but felt I could identify it. Could someone help me out here? Who is speaking; who is “afraid that it will fall”? And what does that mean, metaphorically?
A recurring motif: division of pairs. Things exist in pairs yet are constantly being split into more than one piece, facet, or else they just exist separately but are often mashed together. For every organ/part taken out, there was a replica. There was the body, and the soul, two separate things. There were two finished(?did the aliens say it was ever finished?) boys. there is a word, and there is a sound. light and dark (in and outside the cave). words and things. language and anxiety. There is a collection of pairs that make up the body, the being, the “mysterious wholeness that [are] mere parts” of the whole.
The story reminded me mostly of Vardaman's relationship with death and souls, and immaterial things, and material things, and the soul, and "the stuff in the cosmos[:] words and what they do to your head".
Because vardamann is "a child" like the boy being taken apart and language "was busy shaping" him. I think this is clear in the "not-fish" "not-blood" passage in As I Lay Dying. Vardaman has an interesting relationshsip with language and words in that he sometimes uses the syntax and language of a young, young child, and other times he encompasses the mindframe and the vocabulary of an adult. Vardamann could be "Taken Apart" because of his dual language identity.
And of course, vard has the whole dead/not dead issue going for him. He struggles with the definition of soul, of deathless, of immaterial, even though it isn't explicitly stated in the novel.
While reading, How They Took My Body Apart and Made Another Me, I was struck with how much I related to it, which is odd because I chose to read it because it was the only short story with the word “alien” in the description.
Upon further evaluation, it doesn’t seem strange that I should relate because it is primarily existential and what is the human experience if it isn’t one giant existential crisis?
There were certain phrases and images that struck me throughout the piece, but I have continued to think about 2 specific passages.
1. The Indigo word-debate passage.
This is directed toward Mr. Cook: Making subtle distinctions about the connotation and definitions of a particular word! That’s my thing?! All I do is talk about words, and I really don’t care if they are involved in bigger ideas (they usually are at some point or another). I am fascinated by how different words can be interpreted, particularly in speech. Also, I love the idea of “language shaping”. It does, we use language to shape are thoughts, but language shapes us by containing us within its limits (very Portrait, I know).
2. The “another me” passage.
I think that this passage separates his body and his soul. They “aliens” strip away everything corporeal and leave a pile of junk, but the soul--or at least the cognitive remains are still associated with the pile of junk. I know “But I didn’t want anybody to see it before I had it figured out.” refers to his naked body (King Lear), but it could also refer to his naked identity. At least that is the image I got, especially since he is young child.
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