The Ogre [Day 1]

2. Why is part one written as a diary? Why does he call these his "sinister writings"? What might this imply?

"I thus have two sets of writing...one that is 'sinister', distorted by all the 'gauchenesses' of genius, full of flashes and cries - in short, inhabited by the spirit of Nestor" (pg 30). At first, I didn't understand why they were called sinister writings. They didn't seem evil, but only the past events of his life. Then it clicked when he said 'gauche', and it made sense. They are sinister writings because they are written with his left hand. I also thought the writings represented Nestor. Nestor was a lefty, and somehow transferred this ability to Tiffauges. Part one was written as a diary to explain why Tiffauges is so fascinated by children. Nestor was very fascinated by children, even though he was only a child himself. I thought it was weird how old Nestor seemed; he was taking the same classes as Tiffauges and the other children, but he seemed years ahead of them in knowledge and in maturity.

5. How do you interpret Abel's "rewriting" of the Adam and Eve myth? How does he transform the myth? Why? What does this say about Abel's personality?

"Later he sees that the solitude implied by hermaphroditism is undesirable, so he puts Adam to sleep and takes from him not merely a rib but all his feminine sexual parts, and makes these into an independent being" (pg 16). I thought his rewriting of the Adam and Eve myth was both strange and very fascinating. We are quick to put down creation myths like that, and support evolutionist ideas (I myself included), but as much as we disbelieve them, we don't ever dare to change them. Tiffauges, on the other hand, has no problem in believing in and changing the myth. I would never have thought to give Adam both gender roles. But being the only human until Eve was created, he had to reproduce somehow. And honestly, how could Adam and Eve, one man and one woman, have populated the entire Earth? That would mean that everyone was related and we would all be extremely inbred. I don't it would be possible for a race to survive that long with so much inbreeding; there would have been some serious genetic defect along the way that would have mutated a person's cells so much that they wouldn't be able to function.

"...a sexual part of man, too cumbersome for him to carry permanently..." (pg 16). I thought this quote made Adam look very weak and inadequate. He couldn't handle the responsibilities of being a woman, so God had to help him by taking those parts away. I thought that this also made woman look like the true other half of man. She become the other piece of the puzzle. Although man could 'use' her whenever he wanted, she couldn't really be his inferior. It would almost make her his superior, because she carries the burden that man couldn't handle.