Carnal Knowledge
T. Coraghessan Boyle
Synopsis:
“Carnal Knowledge” is narrated by the carnivorous Jim, a man in his thirties, still alone who seems to be passing through life with no cause to champion or statement to make. In enters Alena Jorgensen, a beautiful and passionate women who gives Jim a cause. She converts him to the ways of an animal rights activist, taking him to protests and filling him with “brewer’s yeast and. . . bark marinated in yogurt.” Things work out well for Jim; he gets his fight and his reward that is in the bed of Alena. Jim believes he is adjusting well to the life Alena pushes him to live, until she pushes him too far. After a turkey-escape plot gone wrong and a confrontation with the truth of his relationship with Alena and with meat, Jim accepts that meat is just as fine a cause as any.
Literary Elements:
STYLE: the distinctive manner in which a writer arranges words to achieve particular effects
Diction: the writer’s choice of words; crucial in controlling a reader’s response
TONE: revealed by style, tone is the author’s implicit attitude toward the people, places, and events in a story
IRONY: a device that reveals a reality different from what appears to be true
Verbal irony: a person saying one thing but meaning the opposite
Situational irony: an incongruity between what is expected to happen and what actually happens
Dramatic irony: when there is a discrepancy between what a character believes or says and what the reader understands to be true
Important Quotes:
“I’d never really thought much about meat. It was there…It was all the same to me, food, the body’s fuel, something to savor a moment on the tongue” (267).
“Now I was the protestor, a placard waver, now I was fighting for the right of every last weasel and lynx to die gracefully, now I was Alena Jorgensen’s lover and a force to be reckoned with” (273).
“I was plugged in now. I felt righteous – for the first time in my life I had a cause – I had Alena, Alena above all” (274).
“The hollowness opened up, cored me out till I felt as if I’d been plucked and gutted and served up on a platter myself” (280).
“All that was between us had come to this, expectations gone sour, a smear on the road” (280)
Discussion Questions:
(Please Answer 2 of the following)
1) The title can be viewed several different ways in relation to the story. What do you understand to be its meaning or importance and why?
2) Jim goes to extreme lengths to get companionship from Alena. At what point does it go too far? In society is there a point where “compromising” for the sake of a significant other becomes converting to abnormal and indecent ideals?
3) How does Boyle’s use of irony create a humorous tone to the story?
4) Does the obvious symbolism between meat and sex and Boyle’s characterization of Alena provoke an anti-feminist tone? Why or why not?
5) Alena quotes Isaac Bashevis Singer when she tells Jim, "Every day is Auschwitz for the animals.” Do your views on vegetarianism, animal rights groups, or meat in general affect your response to the story?