1. Themes Carnival and its suspensions The double-standard Masks
segment: 1:24.20

2. Content
1. What types of warnings does Fridolin receive and from whom? Why is he warned?
2. Why doesn’t Fridolin listen to the warnings he receives? What results from refusing to listen?
3. What happens when Fridolin arrives at home?
4. What happens during the morning of the next day?

4. Dreams Clearly, dreams are important given the title of the text.
What are some different ways to understand a dream?

5. Albertine’s Dream (62-68) How many major parts does the dream have?
Is the dream realistic (in the sense of what you would expect from or expect to remember from dreams)?
And if not, so what?

6. Albertine’s Dream: First Part
passage: 62-63
Emphasis: clothes, windows, flying, forest
What genre is suggested at the start?
We might understand this part as a transition between the reality of the text as it begins and the psychological “realities” underneath.

7. Albertine’s Dream: Second Part
passage: 63-66
Emphasis: nakedness, the yellow case, the cliff face, difference/sameness
How does the feeling of genre shift?
What is the significance of nakedness?
What might the act of inspecting the wall mean?

8. Albertine’s Dream: Second Part
How are the Dane and Fridolin contrasted in this part?
What are we to make of the constant disappearance and reappearance and the idea of always the same but somehow different?

9. Albertine’s Dream: Third Part
passage: 66-68
What is Fridolin’s role in this part?
Why is his refusal to the princess ironic?
Why are Fridolin’s actions in line (at least symbolically) with his class?

10. General Questions
What elements from waking life reappear in the dream?
What roles does Fridolin play in the dream? Is he heroic? Is he a serious character or ridiculous?
Can you create a coherent and unified narrative from Albertine’s dream?

11. General Questions
Does the dream express fears or anxieties, and if it does, whose?
What does Fridolin seem to assume about the process of dreaming, given his reaction on 68?
Why does he refuse to forgive his wife for her dreams?

12. Content 5. What does Fridolin learn about Nachtigall?
6. What is the result of Fridolin’s conversation with Gibiser?

13. Nachtigall and Gibiser
segments: 1:41.20-

14. Fridolin and Women
Fridolin seems to think all women are attracted to him (e.g. 74, 75). Ironically, he condemns women for that reason (even his wife).
Consider on page 75 his reference to the beautiful woman of the night before as “savior” who made a “sacrifice” for him.

15. Content 7. What happens at the house in the country?
8. Fridolin makes several other visits before coming home that night. Where does he go?

16. Night and Day
How do the events of the day parallel the events of the night?
How are they essentially different in each case?
How does Fridolin’s role change in each stage of the daytime journey? (71, 72, 74, 80, 84)

17. Contrasts Herr Gibiser’s establishment The house in the Galitzinberg
Marianne
The prostitute

18. Content
9. What happens at the café? What does he read in the newspaper? Why is Fridolin so certain that it is the same woman? 10. Who is the man in the café who watches Fridolin? 11. What does Fridolin see when he arrives at home? 12. What are the attitudes of the characters at the end?

19. At the Mortuary
What fantasies does Fridolin have about the mysterious woman from the night before? Did he actually see her face? (90)
Is there any certainty when he views the dead body at the mortuary? (93-94)
What is unusual about his relation to the dead body?

20. Closing Remarks
Consider Albertine’s remark near the end of the novella: “‘I think we should be grateful to fate that we’ve emerged safely from these adventures—both from the real ones and the ones we’ve dreamed about.’”
How does this conclude or balance the important passage we examined from page 5?

21. Masks The following page references concern masks: 4 (the ball)
38-41 (Gibiser’s store)
44-53 (the erotic party)
60 (Albertine’s face: figurative)
97-8 (the forgotten mask)

22. Masks
How do masks describe the relation between Fridolin and Albertine?
How do masks describe the relation between inner person and outer person (social expectations and conventions—ultimately related to identity).
How might we interpret the last reference to masks on 97?

23. MLA The MLA assignment is due June 15.
Remember that you must provide a topic, and that you must use only secondary sources, two of which must be journal sources taken from a reference database.
Note examples in the worksheet, page three.

24. Futurists Giacomo Balla (1871-1958) Carlo Carra (1881-1966)
Umberto Boccioni ( )
Gino Severini ( )

25. Giacomo Balla ( )

32. Carlo Carra ( )

37. Umberto Boccioni ( )

46. Gino Severini ( )

53. For Next Time Read: Camus, The Stranger (part one)
Images: Corinth, Nolde, Münter, Kirchner, Marc, Gerstl