References

Landscape with the Fall of  Icarus

paintings with Biblical allusions:

The Census  at Bethlehem, based on Luke 2:1-5 (sometimes called The Numbering at Bethlehem)

The Massacre of the Innocents

"[Bruegel] depicted a Flemish village on a cold December evening; the red ball of the setting sun has begun to slip behind the trees at the left.  Peasants trudge through the ice and snow from all directions, converging on the inn at lower left, where a crowd has already gathered to pay its taxes.  Amid the bustle, no one notices the presence of Joseph leading the Virgin on a mule." (144)

"[Here] another peasant village has been invaded by an army of soldiers who carry out Herod's command with cold-blooded efficiency.  The villagers protest and plead in vain as their children are slaughtered before their eyes.  This grim business is supervised by a detachment of armoured knights in the centre, led by a sinister grey bearded man dressed in black, perhaps Herod himself, .." (Gibson,144)

1. Is being an "unknown citizen" as Auden describes it the same with being Dickensen's "nobody"?
2. Besides  The Unknown Citizen," "Disillusionment of Ten O'clock," as well as all the stories we have read ("The Lottery," "A & P," "A Rose for Emily," "Paul's Case," "Yellow Wallpaper"), also deal with social conformity.  How are their perspectives different?  What are the ways offered in these texts to resist social conformity?   How do we strike a balance between insisting on our individuality and respecting social norms?  Or do we need to?