3. Final Countdown: Is there some sort of irony regarding the main character's odd title on campus? There are many ironies to Jack’s title of chairman of the department of Hitler studies. One is the notion that a man clearly terrified of death is fascinated by a leader who systematically murdered thousands. This discord in Jack’s interests highlights his flawed logic, forming him into a quite unreliable character. Another irony is the general enthusiasm of Jack’s department. The Hitler studies division, Jack’s brainchild, was founded in 1968, around twenty short years after WWII. Rather than being shot down by skeptics, the subject thrived, and a Hitler conference is said to take place the following fall.
4. Quarter Rose: Why would any mother in their right mind force their children to spend their Friday night free-time watching television that upsetted them? Contrary to Quarter Rose, I have to agree with Babette’s unconventional parenting. In addition to encouraging family togetherness (or, regrettably, the lack thereof), the Friday TV ritual dampens the children’s love of television. Thus, the custom strips the false magnificence from TV programs and makes them rather mundane and ordinary. By making TV “unglamorized” and a “domestic sport,” the children lose interest in the “brain sucking” nonsense that TV can broadcast. In short, Babette is preventing her children from wasting away in front of the TV, desiring a false reality that TV so readily presents.
9. Fettuccini Alfredo: Why is the school evacuation played off as not too serious? There is little discussion of it... why? It is odd that only two brief paragraphs are reserved for an event of this magnitude. For one who is overwhelmed by the omnipresence of death, Jack seems strangely nonchalant about this mysterious, and perhaps lethal, happening. I believe that this snippet concerning the disaster serves to enhance the palpable reality of death that begins to pervade Jack’s life. Before this incident, Jack’s life seemed relatively harmless; his anxiety over death seemed almost like a childish delusion. However, compounded with other seemingly inconsequential events such as the toxicity of gum chewing, the school evacuation hints at the ominous truth behind Jack’s qualms. As the novel progresses, this truth becomes frighteningly apparent, ensnaring Jack in a shroud of fatal and infinite darkness.
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