No upcoming assignments.
Now that we have had Socratic Seminar, I feel as if nothing is settled. I feel even more unsettled.
Choose a topic and write me an informal response. Your work must be at least a typed page long. Stay focused.
Caliban
What does it mean that he is left all alone on the island? Why is he left all alone? Why does Prospero reject him as a possible mate for Miranda? What makes him “monstrous?”
You taught me language; and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language! (Act I, ii).
He sounds like Hareton Earnshaw. Is Hareton Earnshaw a sort of Caliban? How is Hareton redeemed? Both are orphans who are oppressed by tyrannical masters.
A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;
And as with age his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers. (Act IV, i)
Is this assessment of Caliban just?
“…this thing of darkness I /Acknowledge mine (V,i).
Is Prospero responsible for Caliban?
Miranda
Why is it significant that Miranda believes Ferdinand is divine? And Tess also believes that Angel is a god, but Tess’ response to her awareness of his divinity is different….
Do both Prospero and Joan Durbeyfeld trade on the virginity of their daughters? Do they commodify their daughters? Does Polonius do the same to Ophelia? What about Angela Vicario’s mother and blind father?
What is the only book we have read that makes no mention at all of female virginity?
Are both Tess and Miranda outside of culture? In ways that are both similar and different?
Caliban links Prospero to books and Miranda to a brood--Prospero to knowledge and Miranda to the creation of a family.
Or whatever else pleases you and feel significant! J
1982. In great literature, no scene of violence exists for its own sake. Choose a work of literary merit that confronts the reader or audience with a scene or scenes of violence. In a well-organized essay, explain how the scene or scenes contribute to the meaning of the complete work. Avoid plot summary.
Take two pages of Cornell notes on at least three of the nine passages on the handout.
1. Writers spend long months, even years, carefully crafting the texts which they write. Every decision that they make about their writing is intentional. Consider the ending of the text which you read. (By ending, I mean the last five to ten pages.) Please offer an argument about what the author may be trying to achieve through the specific ending he/she chose to write. Make sure that you include specific examples and/or direct textual evidence in your essay.
2. Injustice, either social or personal, is a common theme in literature. Choose a novel or a play in which injustice is important. Write an essay in which you define clearly the nature of the injustice and discuss the techniques the author employs to elicit sympathy for its victim or victims.
3. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a play or a novel in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character’s alienation reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions and moral values.
4. Critic Roland Barthes has said, “Literature is the question minus the answer.” Choose a novel or a play and, considering Barthes’ observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers any answers. Explain how the author’s treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.
Why is this passage significant?
1. Choose a passage—one that has not appeared on any handout—from anywhere in the text.
2. Write a typed response in which you explain why the passage is significant.
3. Type the passage out at the top of the page, so I can easily review the text about which you have chosen to write.
4. Remember:
In your response, please make sure that you use the following structure.
1. Offer a claim/argument about why the passage is significant.
2. Provide context for this passage.
3. Discuss the meaning of the passage by using a combination of your own restatement (70%) and direct quotation (30%).
4. Focus in on the single word or short phrase which most powerfully constructs meaning—on which the entire passage “hinges.” Suggest why this word or phrase is so important to the meaning or significance of the whole.
5. Finally, directly or obliquely make a connection with your original claim—the sentence with which you began tour short response.