Monday, February 26, 2007

A Wild Sheep Chase

Chapters 1-12.

1. What do we learn about the boss in Chapter 9? How does this impact our understanding of the role of the secretary in the novel?

2. By Chapter 12, what does the sheep become to symbolize?

10 comments:

Ben said...
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Ben said...

we can learn Boss's life and his inclination from chapter 9. he also have much power and wealth in politic area, information service and the stock market, but he naver surfaces. And the personal secretary is Boss's number two and he is actually running the organization. So we have to concentrate on role of secretary in this novel.

amir said...

The boss has mysterious figure as part of his life is hidden under mantle of some ambiguous events. For example: no one knows how he became upper echelon of the Kanto Army. It seems he has an evil character: he was dealing in drugs, plundering his way all over the Chinese. He has experienced jail. All these evident hint a restlessness, rough, and brutal man whose idiosyncrasy is branded with cruelty. He knows when to go on the attack and when to withdraw.
Currently he is involving in manipulating the market forcing hands, takeovers, and the works. All of the new information pale beside his newsboys gathering them immediately.
The buss personal secretary is the number two man. He is running the organization and the Boss entrusts him. He has actually ambiguous character too.

amir said...

(I presume) A dairy cow seeking a pair of pliers. (Are we immersed in doubled illusion? who is who?!)

amir said...
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amir said...
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WiLLlee said...

1. From Chapter 9, we can know that the boss is someone whose business is related to the politics, national confidential information, and the stock market. He doesn’t show up very often nowadays, or he could be like what rumors said that he is sick. There are lots of possibilities for the coming story that the boss could be dead already that why the secretary is doing this things for himself. That means the secretary will probably become a key role in the novel.
2. By Chapter 12, I don’t think that we have enough information to describe what the sheep becomes to symbolize. We can feel there is must something wrong in the flock of the sheep in the photo to make the title of the book. However, the sheep could be like the ear for the woman. The sheep might be something very charming for a group of people, and that make people who own the sheep want to hide it secretly.

ouilz said...

In chapter 9, the author always mentions about "Boss"'s power and position in politic and it also can assume that this character will play in one of the important role in this story. He always hides his lifestyle and he is a right-side, according to this chapter. But there still has some conflict in this part that we can mention that the man in this chapter maybe the Boss's secretary.

Thomas said...

Regarding the cow:

Here is what my friend Erik says:

The main character is thrown into a situation that makes no sense to him. He randomly publishes a picture of a sheep, and his life changes. It is all completely by coincidence. The dream and the explanation that follows mirrors the arbitariness and bizarness of the novel as a whole.

Thomas said...

In answer to Will:

But don't you think that by now the sheep has come to symbolize mystery, the randomless of life, since the sheep throws the author into a bizarre, unpredictable world?