HOUSE WITH THE BLUE BED BY ALFRED ARTEGA

CHAPTERS:11-20

Zitlaly , Ricardo, Carol

PLANS

Summary of the chapters

PRINCE

Theme: Touch is powerful• Daughter Xochitl encounters a prince, one of her

friends extends her hand to shake his hand and he refuses because letting her touch him would mean everyone could touch him.

• “I ask this not merely of the translation of different social forms of touch, in the matter of styles, but also of the physical link established by touch.”pg 43-44

• Touch is a matter of power• Prince-no touch • Falling woman- touch

CARTAS Theme: Translation is not going from one

language to another. • “Translation is most difficult, perhaps, with poetry and

jokes. This is so, I believe, because both poem and joke are intricate plays of language, one aesthetic, the other humorous.” pg 45

• Translation misses the metaphor sometimes, sure it translates word for word but it loses its humor, the meaning.

• Explains how difficult it was for him to switch from French, to Spanish, to English while traveling in Europe

• In America, especially LA, English and Spanish.

THE DEAD

Theme: Irony• He spent his last teenage years trying to avoid the

dead, their bodies because he didn’t like the fact that you can’t communicate with them.

• He avoided Vietnam by going to college but in order to pay for college he worked for the LA County Coroner’s Office as a custodian.

• Describes it as a hell for detritus of humanity, the used up, discarded flesh that had been the indigent unable to die in a doctor’s care…”pg 50

• He did however like working there for the small excursions he would take with his coworkers

SIGNS

Theme: Signs• Takes place at the Hall of Justice• Lewis, Jewish artist from Berkeley• “His job consisted of…” pg. 54• “By the end of the summer…” pg.55• He lost his job at the Hall of Justice

GUN

Theme: Power• He arrives home, and the police are holding a gun to

her head in an “assassination position” pg. 57• He describes how the media presents the protesting

Chicanos and peace officers

FAITH

Theme: Retaliation• Two blood incidents• First: sister throws a toy rifle at him and wounds his

ear• Second: A girl, Maria Luisa, bites him continuously

until he uses violence to stop her

FEAR

Theme: Fear• He wrote “A mon seul desir” pg. 62• Takes place in winter, in Paris• Spends time with Dominique and they both go to

Tour St-Jaques• They see a tapestry that show six hangings• He compares his poem to Dominique’s fear

BEING

Theme: Being where you belongThe types of writers and writing there is.

Page 66 “But to merely insert a poetic break in a sequence of

narrative logic is an attempt to figure the poetic in the line of

the prosaic”

One of the main points is that one should stick to what they

know, so things wont seem out of place or fake. (pg. 67 bear

poem)

RACE

Theme: what can we controlIn a race distance doesn't’t matter, only time in

which you go a certain speed.

Pg. 70 cant control the tracks, only the speed.

Alfred used to race but let it go because of his

family.

Pg. 72-73 he mentions turn nine.

AUTO BODY

Theme: ProtectionThe tracks in Willow Springs, made him feel safe.

A car accident he gets into while racing in Willow

Springs.

In LA driving to a possible riot.

He felt safe in the car he was in.