Week 4

Class Ground Rules

Read all the assignments before class.
Keep yourself on mute unless called on.
Raise your hands electronically.
Focus your comments only on the question at hand rather than straying to other parts of the story.
Refrain from offering a review of the whole story or jumping to the end.
Discuss the author's story, not your own story.
Try to support your comments by referring to details from the text.
Listen to and respond to others with respect.

"I love that Elizabeth Bishop poem, Filling Station, you know, where you've got the SO sign. And there's life, you know, life behind these places we take for granted. And so I gave, I had this character with that desire, you know, just seeing one of those places and it's a room for rent. And it's like an escape, you know, that you can turn this room into whatever you want it to be and go back.” — Jill McCorkle

READ (at least twice): Jill McCorkle – “Filling Station" pp. 124-146. After you've read this story, go back and look again at "Low Tones" (the stories are related).

A man rents a small room above a filling station that used to be his grandparents' home.

Think About:

Who is Ben and why does he rent the room above the filling station? How does he spend his time there?
Describe Ben's relationship with his wife. How does he see the relationship?
Who is Alton Ward? Describe Ben's relationship with him. Why is he important to Ben?
What do Mr. Ward's ramblings in the hospital reveal about him?
Do you recognize Loris and Alton Ward from last week's story, "Low Tones"? How do the two stories relate to each other?
What is the outcome for Ben?

Filling Station

by Elizabeth Bishop

Oh, but it is dirty!

—this little filling station,

oil-soaked, oil-permeated

to a disturbing, over-all

black translucency.

Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,

oil-soaked monkey suit

that cuts him under the arms,

and several quick and saucy

and greasy sons assist him

(it’s a family filling station),

all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?

It has a cement porch

behind the pumps, and on it

a set of crushed and grease-

impregnated wickerwork;

on the wicker sofa

a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide

the only note of color—

of certain color. They lie

upon a big dim doily

draping a taboret

(part of the set), beside

a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?

Why the taboret?

Why, oh why, the doily?

(Embroidered in daisy stitch

with marguerites, I think,

and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.

Somebody waters the plant,

or oils it, maybe. Somebody

arranges the rows of cans

so that they softly say:

esso—so—so—so

to high-strung automobiles.

Somebody loves us all.

Link to Week 4 class recording: https://brandeis.zoom.us/rec/play/rhL3oFMVZMjsc16baiqV_aATqjsi2tVIJhdd8mYnZ1zoIXQMUfgaDrztu9tfncTQLWEIek7F5sfulXy-.W5snZNkp71svN1Ru

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