1. What exactly does Kristeva mean by the abject? Where does our sense of the abject come from? What kind of things appear abject to us? How do we respond to it? Why? Choose one of Kristeva's examples of the abject and answer all of these questions in relation to that example.

2. A different way of answering question 1 above is by explaining the connections Kristeva sees between the abject, the object, and language (or the symbolic). What role does language play in the distinction between the abject and the object? [If you feel prepared enough, you may also discuss these issues in terms of the semiotic and the symbolic.]

1. What exactly does Kristeva mean by the abject? Where does our sense of the abject come from? What kind of things appear abject to us? How do we respond to it? Why? Choose one of H.D.'s examples from Trilogy that could be considered abject (such as myrrh, Mary, etc.) and answer all of these questions in relation to that example.

In other words, how does myrrh challenge the comfort of socially sanctioned boundaries? Additionally, how does H.D. transform these abject things into sources of strength and resurrection?

1. As presented in Edmunds's argument, how does Melanie Klein view the development of the psychic relationship between mother and child? You might want to choose just one aspect of Klein's thinking rather than try to summarize everything that Edmunds's presents. For example, how does Klein describe and explain infant aggression towards the mother?

2. Even though Edmunds bases her reading of Trilogy on Melanie Klein's work rather than Kristeva's, what similarities do you see between Edmunds's argument and Kristeva's? In other words, how could you translate a key notion of Edmunds's into the notion of the abject?

3. Choose just one section of Edmunds's reading of Trilogy (the sections devoted to "Walls," "Tribute," or "Flowering"—not the whole book!) and explain how Edmunds is relating Klein to H.D.