For this assignment, you’ll be connecting texts through common motifs, themes, settings, narrative structures, etc. Another way to think about the assignment: you’ll show me how three texts engage in a debate or conversation about the meaning of a keyword.
What you’ll need to do:
First, consider the list of keywords below:
- the house
- the woods
- the jail
Consider only the texts from Emerson to Frost on our syllabus. Ask yourself: which keyword interests you the most? which seems important to texts that you’ve liked? can you think of three texts which seem to be concerned with one of these keywords?
Keep in mind: each of these key words can operate in multiple ways in any particular text. For instance, “the jail” may be an important setting in some stories (i.e. Dickinson’s “Pound” in 613, etc.) but also function as an important motif or theme (“imprisonment,” “captivity,” etc.) in others (i.e. Douglass, Gilman, etc.). Likewise, “the woods” serves as a setting and theme in some texts.
Second, choose a keyword. Then, choose three texts from the syllabus that share this keyword.
Your essay should have four sections – – one section for each text. In each section, explain the meaning or function of the keyword for a particular text or writer, i.e. “the house” in Whitman, Gilman, and Dickinson. Use examples and quotation to illustrate your explanation. Your final paragraph should point to some interesting similarities and/or differences among the three texts and their use of the common keyword.
Simply give your chosen keyword as the title of your assignment. And, start each section with the title of the text you’ll be looking at in that section, i.e. “Song of Myself,” “Revolt of Mother,” etc. Your final section doesn’t need a title.
The final assignment should be no more than two, typed, double-spaced, single-sided pages.
Due: Tuesday, November 27.