SOPHIE / ALBERT0					HILDE / ALBERT
		'See' Hilde Did not know Hilde's reality at the start Sophie hits Hilde with a wrench Sophie wants to loosen the boat but cannot...but there is plenty of time
							Can't see Sophie Ignorant of Sophie's 'reality' Stung by Socrates Nature is full of enigmas We must find the way back ourselves The boat is free "Someone is here."
		'THE UNEXAMINED LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING." (Socrates)

II. WHY DO HILDE AND HER FATHER TALK OF THE ORIGINS OF THE UNIVERSE?

III. NOTE, PAGE 503, THAT HILDE IS STUNG. BY WHAT? IDENTIFY THE PHILOSOPHICAL ALLUSION?

IV. HOW CAN SOPHIE AND HILDE LISTEN TO HILDE AND THE MAJOR WHEN THE ROLES WERE REVERSED? (THE MAJOR AND HILDE HAD BEEN LISTENING TO THEM?)

V. DOES THE CREATOR LISTEN? FRANKENSTEIN PROVIDES AN INTELLIGENT ANSWER? MORE RECENTLY, WHY DID PEOPLE SAY OH GOD!!! AFTER 9-11?

VI. PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT LINE IN THE NOVEL OCCURS WHEN SOPHIE LAMENTS THAT SHE IS NOT REAL IN THE SENSE HILDE IS. WHAT DOES ALBERTO SAY? COMPARE AGAIN SONNET 18 BY SHAKESPEARE:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

VII. DO THE CONCLUDING LINES OF THE NOVEL DEEPEN OR RESOLVE THE MYSTERY WE HAVE BEEN ASKED TO STUDY?

VIII. READ AGAIN BOTTOM’S DREAM SPEECH IN IV, i. of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM:

When my cue comes, call me, and I will
answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!
Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout,
the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen
hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare
vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
about to expound this dream. Methought I was–there
is no man can tell what. Methought I was, –and
methought I had, –but man is but a patched fool, if
he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye
of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue
to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of
this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream,
because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the
latter end of a play, before the duke:
peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall
sing it at her death.

IX. THE CONCLUSION BRINGS US FULL CIRCLE TO SOPHIE AND THE TOP HAT:

A. SOPHIE WANTS TO TRY THE ROWBOAT ABOUT WHICH HILDE HAD DREAMED FOLLOWING HER ACCIDENT (P. 285), BUT IT WILL NOT COME LOOSE.

B. WHY HAS THE ROWBOAT BEEN SO IMPORTANT? WHERE DID IT TAKE SOPHIE AND HILDE?

C. WHY DOES SOPHIE HAVE PLENTY OF TIME TO UNTIE IT? WHAT PHILOSOPHERS COME TO MIND?

D. THE SCENE FADES TO HILDE AND HER FATHER, WHO EXPLAINS WHY HE WROTE SOPHIE'S WORLD FOR HER. PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT 'SPOT OF TIME' (WORDSWORTH) OCCURS WHEN THEY OBSERVE THAT THE BOAT HAS COME LOOSE. WHAT SCENES ARE RECALLED AND WHERE DID THEY OCCUR? WHO IS AT WORK? HOW? WHY?

X. IF YOU WERE HILDE AND SOPHIE, AND WE ALL ARE, WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT? WHAT WOULD YOU DO NEXT?

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Check out Supplementary Readings--"A Cargo, A Morning and A Canticle--for a taste of the future.

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