Alien questions:

Email me your response with your answers in the message body. franz66@hotmail.com

Explain your answers and be descriptive- I should not need the original questions in order to understand your answer when I read it.

If you do not use full sentences, you will be given your writing back to redo.

Support your answers or no credit will be given credit.

10 points each for a possible total of 100.

Ship's crewmember names: Ripley, Dallas, Ash, Parker, Lambert, Kane, Brett.

1) In Alien the ship Nostromo is called "Mother" by its crew, its computer has a female voice, and the room which is used to interface with the main computer has a warm womb-like feel. What is the typical role of a mother? How does the ship Mother fulfill, or not, this role? Explain your answer with specific instances from the film.

2) What sort of reactions to fear do the characters show; how do we see their anxiety? Describe in detail at least 3 examples.

3) Write about your memories of the film's audio (NOT music/score). Describe the sound and write about what effect it was used for, how it helped that specific scene.

4) Describe instances in the film that are abject. (I spoke about abjection before we viewed the film. Look it up online if you don't remember.)

5) If abjection represents our fears, then what are we afraid of?

6) The spaceship Nostromo becomes a site of fear, horror, and intense anxiety. How does the design of it feed into this? Be descriptive.

7) When they plug Ash's head back in to ask him how to kill the alien, he tells them that he admires it for its "purity", that it is the "perfect organism... unhindered by conscience or morality". This sets up a contrast between alien and human. Describe this contrast.

8) One of the main oppositions in the film is between the rational and the irrational. Describe how this is. Use specifics from the film.

9) The last scene has Ripley undressing down to her undergarments. If we are watching this, her femaleness finally emerging, we can assume that the alien is as well. What does knowing this in retrospect introduce into that scene?

10) Is the alien male or female? Support your answer.