Assignments

Critical Response # 1: The Tempest

Due: Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Length: ~2 Pages

Possible Points: 5

The reading responses are an opportunity for you to interact informally but seriously with the texts from our syllabus.  We begin with the Tempest, and so I ask that you respond to the text in writing (moving quickly beyond “I liked it,” or “I didn’t like it”)and offering a commentary on either its form, its thematics, or your personal encounter with the text.  It should be typed and double-spaced, and should contain approximately two full pages of writing.  You may write about any topic that relates to the Tempest, but here are some prompts that may help you to choose your angle.  The best approach to this assignment is to choose one significant aspect of the play and explore it in detail.

•  Why is it that Caliban speaks in iambic pentameter rather than in prose?  Is there any credence to his claim that “this island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother”? 
• Do you feel that on balance Prospero’s actions are just, or does he abuse his power?  To what extent does Prospero control the action of the play as a whole?  Is there anything he can’t control?
• What motivates Ariel?  What conclusions can you draw about him based on his words and deeds in this play? 
• Why does Prospero bury his books in the ocean at the end of the play?   Why must he give up magic in order to return to his dukedom in Milan?

Essay # 1

Length: 4-5 pp.

English 200

Benediktsson

Due Date: March 25, 2009

The first essay for this class is your chance to show me what you can do with one of our texts in an interpretive sense.  Where with the response papers I’ve asked you to relate your personal encounter with the text, here I am asking that you move beyond the personal and toward a reading that is aesthetic, historical or political, depending on how you choose to approach your topic.  The question you must answer is the basic question of any literary criticism: why should we read this text—and more especially—why should we read it a particular way.  What I mean by this is quite simple: your task is to construct a critical and detailed reading of one of the texts for our class and to argue that your reading is or ought to be the definitive way to read it.  You should plan to refer copiously to the original, using direct quotations to bolster your claims, and to compose your paper in a serious, academic diction.  Your final product should make use of a professional diction and be relatively free of distracting mechanical errors. 

N.B.: this may seem excessively picky,  but I ask that your papers by typed and double-spaced, using Times New Roman 12-point font.  This is a standard format that makes it easier to judge the approximate length of your work.

The following are a series of prompts that I hope will help you to get started on the assignment.  However, many of you have written in interesting ways on topics of your own devising in your reading responses.  Feel free to develop your reading response into a longer essay, or to conceive of your own novel approach to the assignment.  Either way, though, do inform me in advance what your topic will be.

1.  The Tempest may or may not be a story about colonialism—but it is definitely a story about power and usurpation.  Explore the theme of usurpation, noting both Antonio’s usurpation of Prospero, Caliban’s attempted usurpation of Prospero as well as Caliban’s accusation that Prospero has usurped him.  What does it reveal about the play’s attitude toward the rightful exercise of power to read it in this way?  What is The Tempest telling us about the nature of  hereditary claims more generally?

2.  “The Metamorphosis” is a curious story—that seems in essence to be more about monstrosity and degeneration than it is about “metamorphosis.”  Explain the different ways in which the title explains the action of the story, noting the ways in which different characters might undergo a transformation and what this means about whether we can or should identify with them.

3.  “Bartleby, the Scrivener” ends with the apparently epiphanic realization of the narrator about the nature of humanity—he exclaims “Ah, Bartleby! Ah, Humanity!” as if to show that he finally comprehends the meaning of this story to him or to society more generally.  Has the narrator actually undergone a genuine transformation?  If so, what is the lesson that he has learned from Bartleby—and if not, what is it that prevents him from understanding what Bartleby is trying to teach him?

4.  Watchmen is a novel in which it can be a little difficult to find a character truly worthy of sympathy.  The Comedian is a rapist and a thug; Rorschach is a psychopath; Nite Owl is insecure and indecisive.  Given that, where are our sympathies supposed to lie here?  How can we moralize about this story in which no-one’s actions are truly moral?

5.  Go and see the film adaptation of Watchmen, and evaluate its success in preserving the thematic content of the original novel.  What is left out?  What is kept in?  Is this a successful adaptation in your view?  Why or why not?

Critical Response # 2: Due April 6th, 2009

Unfortunately, as a result of the snow day and the paper extension, Critical Response # 2 has been bumped back; however, I would still like you to write a 2-page response to Watchmen, again choosing a single aspect of the text and analyzing it in some detail, informally but seriously.  It will be due the Wednesday after the mid-term.  Here are some questions you might consider:

1.  The "Gordian Knot" is a recurring metaphor, used to describe Adrian Veidt's unique approach to the intractable problem of impending nuclear disaster.  What is the central lesson Veidt draws from this story?  Is it the right lesson?  Is it possible to see the "Gordian Knot" as revealing something of which Veidt is unaware?

2.  Explore the themes of time and timepieces in Watchmen.  Dr. Manhattan is a watchmaker--and is himself a sort of "clock," capable of registering the correct time, and knowing what time it will be next, but unable to change the outcomes of history in any meaningful way.  The opening image is a clock--each issue begins with a clock showing a different time, and there are clocks and clock-like echoes throughout the book. What is the meaning of all of these clocks?  What is Moore implying about the nature of Time?

3.  Does Dr. Manhattan make the right moral choice in murdering Rorschach at the end of the book?  According to what moral and ethical principles are his actions justified or not justified?  Presumably, no-one would believe Rorschach anyway (the story is quite outlandish)--but this final moment seems to reflect the key ethical difference between Rorschach and the other masked heroes.  What is this difference?  What does it reveal about these characters and their history?