Monday, June 9, 2008

Assignments


Stage Two Students
(enrolled in English 220)


Description: Close-reading exercise
Date due: Week 4 (Friday 15/8)
Length: 500 words
Worth: 10%

Description: Essay
Date due: Week 7 (Friday 19/9)
Length: 1000 words
Worth: 20%

Description: 3-hour Exam (closed book)
Structure: Three essay questions
Worth: 60%

Description: Participation
Based on: Class Exercises + Contribution to discussion
Worth: 10%


Stage Three Students
(enrolled in English 356)



Description: Close-reading exercise
Date due: Week 4 (Friday 15/8)
Length: 500 words
Worth: 10%

Description: Essay
Date due: Week 7 (Friday 19/9)
Length: 1500-2000 words
Worth: 30%

Description: 3-hour Exam (closed book)
Structure: Three essay questions
or one pre-announced question
Worth: 50%

Description: Participation
Based on: Class Exercises + Contribution to discussion
Worth: 10%



Assignment Rubrics:


• Assignment 1: Close-reading exercise
[Same for Stage 2 & Stage 3: 500 words (10%)]

In this assignment, you will be asked either to write a short close-reading of a selected passage from one of the nine novels in the course, or to compose a pastiche of the prose-style of one of our eight authors.

You'll be marked on the wit and insight of your reading: whether analysis or parody.


• Assignment 2: Essay
[Stage 2: 1000 words (20%)]
[Stage 3: 1500-2000 words (30%)]

Two sets of essay questions, one for Stage 2 students and another for Stage 3 students, will be handed out later in the semester. You cannot answer on the same author you used for Assignment 1.


• Final Examination (3 hours)
[Stage 2: 3 essay questions (60%)]
[Stage 3: either 3 essay questions or 1 pre-announced question (50%)]

NB: You are not permitted to answer on any of the novels / authors you've written about in the rest of the course. Nor may you answer on both John Barth novels - only one of these two works may be written about by any student.


• Tutorial Participation (10%)

This will be based on two things:
  1. Class quizzes. At the beginning of each tutorial (after the first) you will be asked to write down the answer to a quick question about the reading for that tutorial. Correct responses will be tallied up and will give you 9 of your marks.
  2. Contributions to discussion. The more constructively and consistently you take part in class activities, the more certain you are to earn this extra mark.




Assignment 1: Close-reading exercise
[500 words (10%)]


Either
write a short close-reading of one of the nine extracts below;
Or compose a pastiche of the prose-style of one of our eight authors.

You'll be marked on the wit and insight of your reading: whether analysis or parody.


I sat down in the middle of the garden, where snakes could scarcely approach unseen, and leaned my back against a warm yellow pumpkin. There were some ground-cherry bushes growing along the furrows, full of fruit. I turned back the papery triangular sheaths that protected the berries and ate a few. All about me giant grasshoppers, twice as big as any I had ever seen, were doing acrobatic feats among the dried vines. The gophers scurried up and down the ploughed ground. There in the sheltered draw-bottom the wind did not blow very hard, but I could hear it singing its humming tune up on the level, and I could see the tall grasses wave. The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers. Queer little red bugs came out and moved in slow squadrons around me. Their backs were polished vermilion, with black spots. I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.
[Willa Cather, My Ántonia (1918), Bk 1, chapter II.]



A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane's and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and soft-hued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips, where the white fringes of her drawers were like feathering of soft white down. Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird's, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark-plumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish: and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face.

She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness. Long, long she suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither and thither. The first faint noise of gently moving water broke the silence, low and faint and whispering, faint as the bells of sleep; hither and thither, hither and thither; and a faint flame trembled on her cheek.

– Heavenly God! cried Stephen's soul, in an outburst of profane joy.
[James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), section IV.]



Miss Quested and Aziz and a guide continued the slightly tedious expedition. They did not talk much, for the sun was getting high. The air felt like a warm bath into which hotter water is trickling constantly, the temperature rose and rose, the boulders said, 'I am alive: the small stones answered, 'I am almost alive.' Between the chinks lay the ashes of little plants. They meant to climb to the rocking-stone on the summit, but it was too far, and they contented themselves with the big group of caves. En route for these, they encountered several isolated caves, which the guide persuaded them to visit, but really there was nothing to see; they lit a match, admired its reflection in the polish, tested the echo and came out again. Aziz was 'pretty sure they should come on some interesting old carvings soon', but only meant he wished there were some carvings. His deeper thoughts were about breakfast. Symptoms of disorganization had appeared as he left the camp. He ran over the menu: an English breakfast, porridge and mutton chops, but some Indian dishes to cause conversation, and pan afterwards. He had never liked Miss Quested as much as Mrs Moore, and had little to say to her, less than ever now that she would marry a English official.
[E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (1924), Part II, chapter XV.]



The thermometer outside the offices of the daily Banner read eighty-nine degrees when I walked past it on my way uptown. Few people were on the streets. At the curb in front of a large funeral parlor a black hearse was parked, its loading door closed, and several mourners, along with the black-suited employees of the establishment, stood quietly about in the yard. As I approached, an aged Chesapeake Bay retriever bitch loped from a hydrangea bush out onto the sidewalk and up onto the undertaker’s porch, followed closely by a prancing, sniffing young mongrel setter. I saw the Chesapeake Bay dog stop to shake herself in front of the door; the setter clambered upon her at once, his long tongue lolling. Just then the door opened and the pallbearers came out with a casket. Their path was blocked by the dogs. Some of the bearers smiled guiltily; an employee caught the setter on his haunches with an unfunereal kick. The bitch trundled off the porch, her lover still half on her, and took up a position in the middle of the sidewalk, near the hearse. The pair then resumed their amours in the glaring sun, to the embarrassment of the company, who pretended not to notice them while the hearse’s door was opened and the casket gently loaded aboard.
[John Barth, The Floating Opera (1957), chapter XI.]



“In life,” he said, “there are no essentially major or minor characters. To that extent, all fiction and biography, and most historiography, are a lie. Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story. Hamlet could be told from Polonius’s point of view and called The Tragedy of Polonius, Lord Chamberlain of Denmark. He didn’t think he was a minor character in anything, I daresay. Or suppose you’re an usher in a wedding. From the groom’s viewpoint he’s the major character; the others play supporting parts, even the bride. From your viewpoint, though, the wedding is a minor episode in the very interesting history of your life, and the bride and groom both are minor figures. What you’ve done is choose to play the part of a minor character: it can be pleasant for you to pretend to be less important than you know you are, as Odysseus does when he disguises as a swineherd. And every member of the congregation at the wedding sees himself as the major character, condescending to witness the spectacle. So in this sense, fiction isn’t a lie at all, but a true representation of the distortion that everyone makes of life.
[John Barth, The End of the Road (1958), chapter 6.]



Next day I sat in a deck-chair on the sheltered starboard-side and let myself roll languidly in and out of the sun with the motions of the mauve-green sea. I tried to read a novel, but the heavy foreseeable progress of its characters down the uninteresting corridors of power made me drowsy, and when the book fell upon the deck, I did not bother to retrieve it. My eyes opened only when the traveller in pharmaceutical products passed by; be clung to the rail with two hands and seemed to climb along it as though it were a ladder. he was panting heavily and he had an expression of desperate purpose as though he knew to what the climb led and knew that it was worth his effort, but knew too that he would never have the strength to reach the end. Again I drowsed and found myself alone in a blacked-out room and someone touched me with a cold hand. I woke and it was Mr Fernandez who had, I suppose, been surprised by the steep roll of the boat and had steadied himself against me. I had the impression of a shower of gold dropping from a black sky as his spectacles caught the fitful sun. "Yes," he said, "yes," smiling an apology as he lurched upon his way.
[Graham Greene, The Comedians (1966), chapter 1.]



Cordelia and Grace and Carol take me to the deep hole in Cordelia's backyard. I'm wearing a black dress and a cloak, from the dress-up cupboard. I'm supposed to be Mary Queen of Scots, headless already. They pick me up by the underarms and the feet and lower me into the hole. Then they arrange the boards over the top. The daylight air disappears, and there's the sound of dirt hitting the boards, shovelful after shovelful. Inside the hole it's dim and cold and damp and smells like toad burrows.

Up above, outside, I can hear their voices, and then I can't hear them. I lie there wondering when it will be time to come out. Nothing happens. When I was put into the hole I knew it was a game; now I know it is not one. I feel sadness, a sense of betrayal. Then I feel the darkness pressing down on me; then terror.

When I remember back to this time in the hole, I can't really remember what happened to me while I was in it. I can't remember what I really felt. Maybe nothing happened, maybe these emotions I remember are not the right emotions. I know the others came and got me out after a while, and the game or some other game continued. I have no image of myself in the hole; only a black square filled with nothing, a square like a door. Perhaps the square is empty; perhaps it's only a marker, a time marker that separates the time before it from the time after. The point at which I lost power. Was I crying when they took me out of the hole? It seems likely. On the other hand I doubt it. But I can't remember.
[Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye (1988), Section IV, chapter 20.]



The first time she drowned in the cold and glassy waters of Matchimanito, Fleur Pillager was only a child. Two men saw the boat tip, saw her struggle in the waves. They rowed over to the place she went down, and jumped in. When they lifted her over the gunwales, she was cold to the touch and stiff, so they slapped her face, shook her by the heels, worked her arms and pounded her back until she coughed up lake water. She shivered all over like a dog, then took a breath. But it wasn't long afterward that those two men disappeared. The first wandered off and the other, Jean Hat, got himself run over by his own surveyor's cart.

It went to show, the people said. It figured to them all right. By saving Fleur Pillager, those two had lost themselves.

The next time she fell in the lake, Fleur Pillager was fifteen years old and no one touched her. She washed on shore, her skin a dull dead gray, but when George Many Women bent to look closer, he saw her chest move. Then her eyes spun open, clear black agate, and she looked at him. "You take my place," she hissed. Everybody scattered and left her there, so no one knows how she dragged herself home. Soon after that we noticed Many Women changed, grew afraid, wouldn't leave his house and would not be forced to go near water or guide the mappers back into the bush. For his caution, he lived until the day that his sons brought him a new tin bathtub. Then the first time he used it he slipped, got knocked out, and breathed water while his wife stood in the other room frying breakfast.
[Louise Erdrich, Tracks (1988), Chapter 2.]



As she stood in the nursery waiting for her cousins' return, she sensed she could write a scene like the one by the fountain and she could include a hidden observer like herself. She could imagine herself hurrying down now to her bedroom, to a clean block of lined paper and her marbled, Bakelite fountain pen. She could see the simple sentences, the accumulating telepathic symbols, unfurling at the nib's end. She could write the scene three times over, from three points of view; her excitement was in the prospect of freedom, of being delivered from the cumbrous struggle between good and bad, heroes and villains. None of these three was bad, nor were they particularly good. She need not judge. There did not have to be a moral. She need only show separate minds, as alive as her own, struggling with the idea that other minds were equally alive. It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show how they had equal value. That was the only moral a story need have.
[Ian McEwan, Atonement (2001), chapter 3.]




Assignment 2: Essay
[Stage 2 students only - 1000 words (20%)]


Answer one question only.

Normal in-line citations (in either MLA or APA format) will be required for any material quoted or referred to in your essay. This includes the set text under discussion, even if you're using the exact edition recommended for the course.

NB: You may not answer on the same author you wrote about in Assignment 1: the close-reading exercise.

A standard 10% variation above or below the prescribed word limit is permissible in this essay.

NB: Please remember to include a word count at the end.


1. Willa Cather, My Ántonia (1918)


Either:
Write a review of Willa Cather’s novel intended for a local Nebraska newspaper in 1918.

Or:
Write an account of Jim Burden’s visit to the Cuzak household from the point-of-view of either Ántonia or her husband.

Or:
Write an essay discussing whether or not My Ántonia can be considered a feminist novel.

2. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

Either:
Write a review of James Joyce’s novel intended for a Dublin newspaper in 1916.

Or:
Write a review of James Joyce’s novel intended for a London newspaper in 1916.

Or:
Write a character sketch of Stephen Dedalus from the point-of-view of either his mother or one of his sisters.

Or:
Write an essay discussing why the sermons Stephen hears at the retreat are reiterated at such length in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?

3. E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (1924)

Either:
Write a review of E. M. Forster’s novel intended for an Indian Nationalist journal in 1924.

Or:
Write a review of E. M. Forster’s novel intended for a London weekly magazine in 1924.

Or:
Write an account of the Marabar Caves incident from the point-of-view of either Professor Godbole or Miss Derek.

Or:
Is Forster's A Passage to India mainly concerned with politics or mysticism? Discuss.

4. John Barth, The Floating Opera (1957)

Either:
Write a review of John Barth’s The Floating Opera intended for a local Tidewater Maryland newspaper in 1957.

Or:
Write an analysis of Todd Andrew’s affair with Jane Mack from the point-of-view of either Jane or her husband.

Or:
The Floating Opera is best read as a parody of Post-war Existentialism. Discuss.

5. John Barth, The End of the Road (1958):

Either:
Write a review of John Barth’s The End of the Road intended for a New York daily newspaper in 1958.

Or:
Write a character sketch of Jake Horner from the point-of-view of either Peggy Rankin or the Doctor.

Or:
What is the significance of the last word in The End of the Road?

6. Graham Greene, The Comedians (1966):

Either:
Write a review of Graham Greene’s novel intended for a local Port-au-Prince newspaper in 1966.

Or:
Write a review of Graham Greene’s novel intended for a London weekly magazine in 1966.

Or:
Write a description of Mr Brown from the point-of-view of either Martha or Mrs. Smith.

Or:
The Comedians deals with a specific place at a specific time. Do its themes also have broader implications?

7. Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye (1988):

Either:
Write a review of Margaret Atwood’s novel intended for a Toronto newspaper in 1988.

Or:
Write a review of Margaret Atwood’s novel intended for a New York newspaper in 1988.

Or:
Write a character sketch of Elaine Risley from the point-of-view of either her first husband Jon or the grown-up Cordelia.

Or:
In Cat’s Eye, how does the theme of bullying relate to the theme of art?

8. Louise Erdrich, Tracks (1988):

Either:
Write a review of Louis Erdrich’s novel intended for a local Dakota newspaper in 1988.

Or:
Write a description of either Nanapush or Pauline from Fleur Pillager’s point-of-view.

Or:
Tracks has a double ending, since it depicts both the departure of Fleur and the return of Lulu. What is the significance of this double ending?

9. Ian McEwan, Atonement (2001):

Either:
Write a review of Ian McEwan’s novel intended for a London weekly magazine in 2001.

Or:
Write a review of the film which might have been made in the 1940s of Briony Tallis’s novella Two Figures by a Fountain, if it had been accepted for publication in Horizon magazine.

Or:
Atonement contains many allusions to earlier literature. What, in your view, is the significance of these allusions?



Assignment 2: Essay
[Stage 3 students only - 1500-2000 words (30%)]


Answer one question only.

Normal in-line citations (in either MLA or APA format) will be required for any material quoted or referred to in your essay. This includes the set text under discussion, even if you're using the exact edition recommended for the course.

NB: You may not answer on the same author you wrote about in Assignment 1: the close-reading exercise.

The upper and lower limits in the word count (i.e. 1500-2000 words) are to be adhered to strictly.

NB: Please remember to include a word count at the end of your essay.


1. Willa Cather, My Ántonia (1918)


Either:
Write a review of the original publication of Willa Cather’s novel, intended for a New York critical quarterly in 1918.

Or:
Write a review of a popular reissue of Willa Cather’s novel, intended for a New York critical quarterly in 2008.

Or:
Write a character analysis of Jim Burden from the point-of-view of either Ántonia Cuzak or Gaston Cleric.

2. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

Either:
Write a review of the original publication of James Joyce's novel, intended for an Irish literary magazine in 1916.

Or:
Write a review of the first publication of Seamus Deane's Penguin edition of James Joyce's novel, intended for an international literary critical journal in 1999.

Or:
Write a character analysis of Stephen Dedalus from the point-of-view of either his father or one of his sisters.

3. E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (1924)

Either:
Write a review of the original publication of E. M. Forster's novel, intended for an Indian Nationalist Journal in 1924.

Or:
Write a review of the first publication of Oliver Stallybrass's Abinger edition of E. M. Forster's novel, intended for an international literary critical journal in 1979.

Or:
Write an account of the Marabar Caves incident from the point-of-view of either Professor Godbole or Miss Derek.

4. John Barth, The Floating Opera (1957)

Either:
Write a review of the original publication of John Barth’s The Floating Opera, intended for a New York literary quarterly in 1957.

Or:
Write a review of the first publication of the revised Doubleday edition of The Floating Opera and The End of the Road, published with a new introduction by the author, intended for an international literary critical journal in 1988.

Or:
Write an analysis of Todd Andrew’s affair with Jane Mack from the point-of-view of either Jane or her husband.

5. John Barth, The End of the Road (1958):

Either:
Write a review of the original publication of John Barth’s The End of the Road, intended for a New York critical quarterly in 1958.

Or:
Write a character analysis of Jake Horner from the point-of-view of either Peggy Rankin or (in more technical terms) the Doctor.

6. Graham Greene, The Comedians (1966):

Either:
Write a critical review of Graham Greene’s novel intended for a local Port-au-Prince newspaper in 1966.

Or:
Write a review of Graham Greene’s novel intended for a London critical quarterly in 1966.

Or:
Write a character analysis of Mr Brown from the point-of-view of either Martha or Jones or Mrs. Smith.

7. Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye (1988):

Either:
Write a review of Margaret Atwood’s novel intended for a New York critical quarterly in 1988.

Or:
Write a character analysis of Elaine Risley from the point-of-view of either her first husband Jon or the grown-up Cordelia.

8. Louise Erdrich, Tracks (1988):

Either:
Write a review of Louis Erdrich’s novel intended for a New York critical quarterly in 1988.

Or:
Write a character analysis of either Nanapush or Pauline from Fleur Pillager’s point-of-view.

9. Ian McEwan, Atonement (2001):

Either:
Write a critical review of Ian McEwan’s novel intended for an international literary magazine in 2001.

Or:
Write a critical review of the film which might have been made in the mid-1940s of Briony Tallis’s novella Two Figures by a Fountain, if it had been accepted for publication in Horizon magazine.


Pre-announced Examination Questions
NB: These apply to Stage 3 students only.


You have the choice of answering either one of the questions below or 3 unseen single-author essay questions from the exam paper.

Whichever alternative you choose, the exam is worth 50% of your final grade.

  1. If Tracks (1988) and My Ántonia (1918) are both revisionist Westerns, which aspects of the traditional Western are they attempting to subvert? Discuss with close reference to both Willa Cather and Louise Erdrich.

  2. “How dangerous it is for a critic to have no technical awareness of the novel.” Discuss this remark of Graham Greene’s with reference to two ostensibly topical, political novels: The Comedians (1966), set in Haiti under Papa Doc, and E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1924), set in India under the Raj.

  3. Zombies and the Undead infest both The Comedians (1966) and Cat’s Eye (1988). Discuss the very different ways in which Graham Greene and Margaret Atwood employ this unusual thematic device.

  4. If Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2001) offers a protracted farewell to the twentieth-century novel, in all its complexity and variety, could James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) be said to have done the same thing for nineteenth-century fiction? Or are both novels more forward-looking than that?

  5. Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2001) and John Barth’s The End of the Road (1958) both constitute extended meditations on the moral responsibility of the creative artist. Discuss with close reference to both novels.

  6. If Cather’s My Ántonia (1918) is as much of a Bildungsroman [novel of education] as Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), what exactly have Jim Burden and Stephen Dedalus, respectively, learned by the end of their very different fictional journeys? Compare and contrast the two novels.

  7. “When my first novel (The Floating Opera) was published in the mid-1950s, it was approved by the critic Leslie Fiedler as an example of ‘provincial American existentialism’.” says John Barth. Could the same description be applied to Atwood’s Cat’s Eye, published thirty years later in Canada? Discuss with close reference to the characters of Todd Andrews and Elaine Risley.

  8. E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1924) and Louise Erdrich’s Tracks (1988) are both novels which set out to dramatise the divided psychological state of a colonised people. Are the conclusions they come to so very different? Does either novel hold out any particular hope at its conclusion?

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