"The Carnival"

“The Carnival” by Lillie Carré (page 104) was an interesting read, and it kind of left a lot to the imagination. Jackie already did a post on this, so I’ll try not to repeat too much on what she already said!

To summarize, “The Carnival” is a graphic novel about, Henry, a car salesman, who feels his job is unfulfilling and he kind of just goes through the motions, both at work and in life (ironically, his own car doesn’t seem to function very well). Henry seems to get so overwhelmed that he just drives aimlessly and ends up stopping at a motel next to a traveling carnival. At the carnival, Henry meets a young woman who is there with a little boy named Sam (son maybe?). The young woman was not given a name, which I found really strange. The young woman and Sam go back to Henry’s motel together, where the young woman and Sam come close to having sex while Sam is in the bathroom taking a bath. When Henry wakes up the next morning, the young woman and Sam are gone, so Henry simply drives back home.

One theme I can kind of see in this story is fantasy. Because the young woman didn’t have a name, I kind of thought she was a spirit or nymph of some sort. If we’re tying this to Macbeth, I would consider her one of the Weird Sisters because the young woman ultimately sets the tone for the last half of the story – locating peace and happiness (which is seen when she has Henry find his happy place while they are stuck on the ferris wheel). Jackie had a GREAT idea to have students draw their peaceful place, so I won’t repeat what she already wrote.

Sticking with the fantasy, I wasn’t really sure what was real and what was a hallucination in “The Carnival.” I got the impression that the young woman was merely a figment of Henry’s imagination, something to remind him that maybe not all is lost or that there is a better life for him if he would simply act on it. Tying to Macbeth, well, the entire play is full of visions and hallucinations that serve as reminders of guilt for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth! One thing you could do is print out the frames of events from the story and have students sort them into two groups: fantasy and reality. Taking it a step further, you could give students a topic (like a football game) and have them come up with a couple realistic things that could happen at a football game and a couple of fantasy things that could happen. Both seem like they could be a little hands-on yet challenging.