English Essay

COLSON WHITEHEAD’S ZONE ONE “FRIDAY”

1) In the opening pages of Zone One, Mark Spitz ruminates on his childhood trips to his Uncle Lloyd’s bachelor pad in the big city. Reflecting back on these formative visits, Spitz comes to realize that Uncle Lloyd represented the ideal future of his childhood self. What specifically does Lloyd represent through the eyes of a young Mark Spitz? What would it have meant, in particular, for Spitz to have adopted the adult life of an “Uncle Llyod,” and how are the realities of Spitz’s life different after the plague? 2) What kind of a person is Mark Spitz? What do we learn about him from the opening pages of the first section of the novel? I’d like you to perform a character analysis in which you explain who he is, what motivates him, what he desires, and what holds him back from success. 3) Mark Spitz speaks of the city as a living thing: an organism that is constantly changing and always in flux. Can you explain his position on the recursive nature of the city? How does the city change, specifically, and what kind of images does Mark Spitz employ to talk about it? 3) As a group, I’d like you to perform character analyses of the following three characters Gary, Caitlin, and the Lieutenant. I’d like you to perform a character analysis in which you explain who these characters are, what motivates them, and what they desire. How does Mark Spitz view them, in particular? 5) The Lieutenant speaks about “boots” as “the elusive, the vital” (40), that which all survivors seek. How would you define the term “boots”? What kinds of “boots” are people searching for, and why are “boots” so important to them? 6) Whitehead explains that the news of the Tromanhauser triplets “spread through the Northeast Settlements quicker than any uplifting news of this or that reconstruction effort…” (51). What does the birth of this set of triplets represent for survivors, and why is it that these anonymous children are more important than anything else? Please be specific in your answer. 7) Who is Gina Spens, and why does she become so famous to the survivors? What does a survivor like Gina Spens represent for those in Zone One? What does this detail from the novel say about celebrity culture after the apocalypse? 8) How does Mark Spitz describe “PASD”? What is it, who has it, and why is its significant for the survivors? 9) Near the end of the first section of the novel, Mark Spitz finally reveals his “Last Night story.” He claims that everyone has one, and that these stories are traded as a way of building intimacy with other survivors. What does the story reveal about Spitz in particular? 10) When the Lieutenant and Mark Spitz first meet (pages 114-124) they engage in a meandering conversation about clouds and stragglers. Please describe the Lieutenant’s philosophical position on both in detail. If his position was symbolic of the larger claims or arguments of the novel, how would you describe the novel’s position given these descriptions?