ACC_-_Literary_Analysis_-_..docx

Copyright 2011 by Jimmy C. Stephens. All Rights reserved. Literary Analysis: The Short Story Classroom Use Only. NOT FOR SALE. 18 23 Literary Analysis: The Short Story Fair Use Some material contained herein is used according to the ?Fair Use? provision of the United States Copyight Laws: US Code TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 1 > § 107. Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. Examples of student work are copyrighted by their respective authors and are used under the ?Fair Use? provision N.B. Pages in this document may contain hypertext links to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links provide additional information that may be useful or interesting and are being provided only for citation purposes. The author does not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of this outside information. The author does not endorse the organizations sponsoring linked websites and does not endorse the views they express or the products/services they offer. Copyright © 2009-2011 Jimmy C. Stephens. All Rights Reserved. Materials obtained from Internet sources are so cited. This book is not for sale. It is for classroom use only. The Short Story - Literary Analysis Jimmy Stephens, M.S., M.Ed. Table of Contents Literary Analysis: 2 The Short Story 2 Fair Use 3 Table of Contents 6 Composition II Course Syllabus 16 ENG. 1302 - Spring 2011 16 Prerequisite 16 Course Description 16 Course Objectives 16 Course Outcomes 16 Requirements 16 Format for Essays 22 Writing Assignment Guidelines and Expectations 24 Instructions for Edit, Revision, and Rewrite 28 How Many Pages is 1,000 Words? 29 English 1302 Course Outline 30 Composition Assignments 34 Literary Analysis: The Short Story 38 Essential Questions 38 Objectives 38 HOLD HARMLESS AGREEMENT 40 NCTE/IRA Standards 45 TEKS Covered In This Unit 46 Literary Analysis: Pre-Assessment 56 The Prose Passage Essay 58 An Analysis of James Joyce's Short Story ?The Dead: Loving and Losing? 60 The Prose Passage Essay: ?The Dead? Discussion 62 Student Essay A 66 Student Essay B 70 Rubrics 74 Rating the Student Essays 74 Literary Analysis Rubric 77 Getting Started: ?The Most Dangerous Game? 78 The Most Dangerous Game 80 Writing About Literature 92 On-Line Guides to Writing about Literature 94 Nobel Laureates in Literature 95 Introductory Note: The Paradox of Literature 98 A Student?s Guide to Literature 100 Response & Analysis 114 Chapter 3 116 View of a Pig - Ted Hughes 116 How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay 138 Writing About Literature (Fiction) 144 What this handout is about 144 Demystifying the process 144 1. Become familiar with the text. 145 2. Explore potential topics 145 3. Select a topic with a lot of evidence 146 4. Write out a working thesis 146 5. Make an extended list of evidence 146 6. Select your evidence 148 7. Refine your thesis 148 8. Organize your evidence 148 9. Interpret your evidence 149 General hints 149 1. Make your thesis relevant to your readers 149 2. Select a topic of interest to you 149 3. Make your thesis specific 150 Works consulted 150 The Basic Structure of an Academic Essay 152 Key Points: 158 Organization 158 Content: what to say 158 Style 160 Mechanics 161 Documentation and quoting 162 Pet peeves 162 The Seven Elements of Fiction 166 The Seven Elements of Fiction: ?The Most Dangerous Game? 168 Character 169 Student Notes on The Seven Elements of Fiction 172 Elements of the Short Story: Setting 172 Elements of the Short Story: Central Idea (Theme) 173 Elements of the Short Story: Character 176 Elements of the Short Story: Conflict 177 Elements of the Short Story: Point of View 178 Student Essay: Exemplars 180 The Story of an Hour 182 Literary Analysis & Criticism 198 Approaches to Literary Criticism (Summary) 200 Biographical: 200 Historical: 200 Geographical: 200 Political: 200 Philosophical and Religious: 200 Sociological/Anthropological: 201 Psychological: 201 Introduction to Modern Literary Theory 202 Literary Trends and Influences* 202 New Criticism 202 Archetypal / Myth Criticism 203 Psychoanalytic Criticism 204 Marxism 205 Postcolonialism 206 Existentialism 208 Phenomenology and Hermeneutics 209 Russian Formalism / Prague Linguistic Circle/Linguistic Criticism/Dialogic Theory 210 Avant-Garde / Surrealism / Dadaism 211 Structuralism and Semiotics 212 Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction 214 Postmodernism 216 New Historicism 217 Reception and Reader-Response Theory 219 Feminism 220 Genre Criticism 223 Autobiographical Theory 225 Travel Theory 227 Critical Approaches to Literature 232 Deconstruction 232 Feminist Criticism 232 The New Historicism 233 Psychoanalytic Criticism 234 Structuralism 236 Marxist Criticism 237 The New Criticism 238 Formalism 239 Postcolonial Criticism 239 Myth Criticism 242 Overview 242 Introduction 242 Published Examples of Myth Criticism 243 Time 243 Conclusions: Suggestions 246 References 246 Internet Resources 246 Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism 248 Introduction 248 Moral Criticism and Dramatic Construction (~360 BC-present) 249 Plato 249 Formalism (1930s-present) 250 Psychoanalytic Criticism (1930s-present) 251 Marxist Criticism (1930s-present) 253 Reader-Response Criticism (1960s-present) 254 Structuralism and Semiotics (1920s-present) 255 Post-Structuralism, Deconstruction, Postmodernism (1966-present) 257 New Historicism, Cultural Studies (1980s-present) 260 Post-Colonial Criticism (1990s-present) 262 Feminist Criticism (1960s-present) 263 Gender Studies and Queer Theory (1970s-present) 265 Periods of English Literature 268 Periods of World Literature 276 Writing About Prose: A Student Handbook 280 Poor Example 282 Writing About Prose 284 Writing Literary Essays: An Overview 289 General Questions to Consider in Analyzing Literature 290 General Questions for Analysis and Evaluation of Literature 292 Suggestions about Writing a Prose Passage for the ?C? Test 293 Essay Preparation 296 General Composition Reminders 298 College Writing 300 What this handout is about... 300 What is a five-paragraph theme? 300 Why do high schools teach the five-paragraph theme? 300 Why don't five-paragraph themes work well for college writing? 300 How do I break out of writing five-paragraph themes? 301 Is it ever OK to write a five-paragraph theme? 303 Bibliography 303 Argument 306 What this handout is about... 306 Arguments are everywhere... 306 Making a Claim 306 Evidence 307 Counterargument 308 Audience 308 Critical Reading 309 References: 309 Toulmin's Analysis 310 Toulmin?s Model of Argument 312 Brainstorming 314 What this handout is about... 314 Introduction 314 Brainstorming Techniques 314 Freewriting 314 Break down the topic into levels: 315 Listing/Bulleting: 315 Cubing: 316 Similes: 316 Clustering/ Mapping/ Webbing: 316 Relationship Between the Parts: 317 Journalistic Questions: 317 Thinking Outside the Box: 318 Using Charts or Shapes: 318 Consider Purpose and Audience: 318 Dictionaries, Thesauruses, Encyclopedias: 319 Closing 319 Bibliography 319 Introductions 322 What this handout is about 322 The Role of Introductions 322 Why bother writing a good introduction? 322 Strategies for Writing an Effective Introduction 323 How to Evaluate Your Introduction Draft 324 Five Kinds of Less Effective Introductions 324 Sources 325 Thesis Statements 326 What this handout is about? 326 Introduction 326 What is a thesis statement? 326 How do I get a thesis? 326 How do I know if my thesis is strong? 327 Examples 327 Bibliography 328 Paragraph Development 330 What this handout is about... 330 What is a paragraph? 330 How do I decide what to put in a paragraph? 330 5-step process to paragraph development 331 Now here is a look at the completed paragraph: 332 Beneath the Formula for Paragraph Development 334 In Review? 335 More Help? 335 Bibliography 335 Transitions 336 What this handout is about... 336 The Function and Importance of Transitions 336 Organization 336 How Transitions Work 336 Types of Transitions 337 Transitional Expressions 337 Conclusions 340 What this handout is about... 340 About Conclusions 340 Why bother writing a good conclusion? 340 Strategies for Writing an Effective Conclusion 340 Strategies to Avoid 341 Four Kinds of Ineffective Conclusions 341 Sources 342 Excerpts from Professional Literary Criticism 344 Gender and Authorial Limitation In Faulkner's "A Rose For Emily." 346 Short Stories for Class Discussion 354 A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children 356 The Destructors 360 Miss Brill 372 A Perfect Day for Bananafish 376 Once upon a Time 388 Eveline James Joyce 394 A Rose for Emily 398 The Swimmer John Cheever 404 The Drunkard 412 A&P 420 Bahnwärter Thiel 424 Bahnwärter Thiel Notes 440 The Yellow Wallpaper 444 Student Notes 458 Student Notes: ?A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" 460 A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" 462 The Master of Short Forms 463 Overview of ?A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings? 465 The Logic of Wings: García Márquez, Todorov, and the Endless Resources of Fantasy 468 Student Notes: ?The Destructors? 474 Graham Greene 476 Student Notes: ?Miss Brill? 480 Overview of ?Miss Brill? 482 "Miss Brill" 486 Plot Summary: "Miss Brill" 490 Plot 490 Characters 491 Alienation in Miss Brill 492 Themes and Construction: "Miss Brill" 494 Study Questions: "Miss Brill" 496 Historical Context: "Miss Brill" 497 Sample Student Essay on Katherine Mansfield?s ?Miss Brill? 498 An Explication of a Student Essay in Critical Analysis 500 Student Notes: ?A Perfect Day for Bananafish? 510 J. D. Salinger: Seventy-Eight Bananas 512 J. D. Salinger 518 J. D. Salinger: The Mirror of Crisis 526 J. D. Salinger: Rare Quixotic Gesture 530 J. D. Salinger 536 Student Notes: ?Once Upon a Time? 538 Gordimers ?Once Upon a Time? 540 Student Notes: ?Eveline? 542 James Joyce 544 Criticism by Harry Levin 560 Additional Material 562 Student Notes: ?A Rose for Emily? 564 Old Boys, Mostly American: William Faulkner, The Short Stories 566 ?A Rose for Emily? 570 Gender and Authorial Limitation in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" 576 Student Notes: ?The Swimmer? 584 THE SWIMMER (1968) 586 The Swimmer 588 The Swimmer: A Midsummer's Nightmare 593 The Swimmer 596 Student Notes: ?The A&P? 598 Plot Summary: "A & P" 600 Plot 600 Characters 601 ?The A&P? 604 The Art of John Updike's "A & P" 609 ?A&P? Notes to Ponder for Composition Improvement 611 ?A & P" Essay Question 612 Stories for Compositions 614 The Scarlet Ibis 616 The Metamorphosis 620 The Lottery by Shirley Jackson 642 Young Goodman Brown 648 The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County 656 The Things They Carried 660 Memento Mori 670 Sonny's Blues 680 Harrison Bergeron 696 The Utterly Perfect Murder 702 Literature and Composition Exam: The Prose Passage Essay ?C? Test Literature and Composition Exam: The Prose Passage Essay 706 Appendix I: Literary Analysis Papers - Successful Student Examples 712 The Lord of the Rings 714 Appendix II: A Glossary of Literary Terms 770 A Glossary of Literary Terms 772 Appendix III: A Vocabulary of Attitudes 800 A Vocabulary of Attitudes 802 Appenxix IV: Concepts for Literature 804 Concepts for Literature 806 Appendix VI: Suggested Stories for Additional Reading 808 Suggested Stories for Additional Reading 810 Composition II Course Syllabus ENG. 1302 - Spring 2011 Professor: Jimmy Stephens, M.S., M.Ed. Email: Jimmy@Stephens.org / jstephe1@AustinCC.edu Mailbox: Library Office Hours: As scheduled Course Hours: M & W 7:45AM ? 9:00AM Prerequisite Enrollment in ENGL 1302 requires credit for ENGL 1301, or its equivalent, with at least a grade of ?C.? Instructor will verify. Course Description ENGLISH 1302 is a continuation of English 1301 with emphasis on analysis of readings in prose fiction. Students will use literary elements to interpret short fiction. Course Objectives The goals of Composition II are to promote ? Critical thinking, reading, and writing within an intercultural context; ? Clear, coherent, confident, and effective communication; ? Collaborative writing and learning; ? Literary analysis. Course Outcomes Upon completion of English 1302, students should be able to ? Think, read, and write critically; ? Effectively use referential (interpretive/analytical) writing; ? Critically analyze fiction; ? Appreciate and understand how the elements of fiction work together. Requirements This course will focus on seven elements of fiction: central idea, character, conflict, point of view, setting, language, and tone. These elements will be incorporated into five to seven writing assignments, varying in length from 200-1000 words (for a minimum total of 2500 words) and using either a cumulative or single-element approach. To qualify for the Departmental Exam, in at least one paper students must demonstrate their mastery of MLA style for documentation by using parenthetical documentation and providing a list of works cited that contains at least one source other than the primary source. In addition, all TEKS will be covered as required by the state. High School Rules and Responsibilities All high school rules and responsibilities are in full force. Absences and grades will be reported to school administration. Use of Cameras and Recording Devices Use of recording devices, including camera phones and tape recorders, is prohibited in classrooms, laboratories, faculty offices, and other locations where instruction, tutoring, or testing occurs. These devices are also not allowed to be used in campus restrooms. Students with disabilities who need to use a recording device as a reasonable accommodation should contact the Office for Students with Disabilities for information regarding reasonable accommodations. Student Freedom of Expression Each student is strongly encouraged to participate in class. In any classroom situation that includes discussion and critical thinking, there are bound to be many differing viewpoints. These differences enhance the learning experience and create an atmosphere where students and instructors alike will be encouraged to think and learn. On sensitive and volatile topics, students may sometimes disagree not only with each other but also with the instructor. It is expected that faculty and students will respect the views of others when expressed in classroom discussions. Participation and Preparation In addition to the four papers, the department exam, and the ?A? and ?B? papers, students are expected to come to class prepared with all homework assignments and participate in all class work during class time. Each class day, students will be assessed a checkmark for preparation and a checkmark for participation. In order to qualify to submit the ?A? paper, students must have at minimum a 90% participation and preparation grade. In order to qualify to submit the ?B? paper, students must have at minimum an 80% participation and preparation grade. Preparation grades will include but are not limited to the following: Reading the assigned story for the day Completing the assigned reading response for the day Bringing to class rough drafts of papers on peer editing days Bringing to class all writing practice assignments Bringing the assigned textbooks to class Participation grades will include but are not limited to the following: Attending class Participating in class discussions Reading in-class assignments Participating in in-class writing assignments Taking in-class quizzes and self-assessments Sharing written work with other students Peer editing other student?s work Participating in the start of class and ?exit pass? activities Quizzes and reading responses will only be given during class. No make-up quizzes will be given, and students arriving after the quiz begins or leaving before it is given forfeit their right to take the quiz. Important Calendar Dates (Subject to Change) January 19 First Day of Class February 21 Holiday February 9 Peer Edit Paper March 2 Peer Edit Paper #2 March 14, 16 Spring Break (no Class) March 23 Peer Edit Paper #3 April 13 Peer Edit Paper #4 April 25 Withdraw Deadline Wednesday, May 4, Last day of class Monday, May 9, 4:30 PM C Test Required Textbooks Charters, Ann. The Story and Its Writer. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2010. ISBN-10: 0312596235 ISBN-13: 978-0312596231 Hacker, Diana. The Bedford Handbook. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2009. (Be sure it is the 2009 update.) ISBN-10: 0312652690 ISBN-13: 978-0312652692 A Note on Textbook Availability: I cannot postpone the readings. It is your responsibility to purchase the required texts as quickly as possible; if you cannot find the textbook at the RCC bookstore, I suggest that you check other ACC bookstores, as well as Bevo's and other college book retailers in Austin. Grading I will use the following marks for grading essays: Accept/Edit/Revise/Rewrite ACCEPTED!: the paper fulfills the objectives of the assignment and is relatively free of grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors. EDIT: the paper fulfills the objectives of the assignment but contains errors. You must avoid similar errors in subsequent papers in order to progress in the course. REVISE: the paper needs improvement in style, organization, or development. REWRITE!: the paper does not fulfill the objectives of the assignment. "B" Requirement: Write an essay according to guidelines provided by your instructor. Minimum length: 1000 words. Your instructor may provide an alternative assignment. The ?B? paper will be evaluated ?Accept? or ?Rewrite? only. "A" PAPER: Following guidelines provided by your instructor, write an essay using two or more sources on a similar topic. Minimum length: 1000 words. MLA Documentation required. The ?A? paper will be evaluated ?Accept? or ?Rewrite? only. Students must receive ?Accepted? on six essays to be eligible to receive a permit for taking the Departmental Exam. Additional assignments are required for the grades of ?B? and ?A.? Your final grade will be determined by the grade level you complete. Each paper will be marked "ACCEPTED," "EDIT," "REVISE," or "REWRITE." (You may submit only one paper at a time; when one is ACCEPTED, you may submit the next one.) In addition, compliance with your instructor's point system for deadlines and activities may determine your eligibility for a grade of "B" or "A." The Departmental Exam The Departmental Exam will be taken under supervision in the Testing Center. Given a selection to read, you will write an interpretive essay of at least 750 words analyzing the selection. This essay will be evaluated "ACCEPTED" or "RETEST" only. If you do not pass on the first try, you may retest twice. Your essay must include a summary, analysis, and evaluation and must demonstrate the following ? coherence, critical thinking, and an understanding of the selection's thesis, purpose(s), and method(s) of organization; ? adherence to stylistic, grammatical, and mechanical conventions I will establish deadlines by which you must complete a specific number of assignments or be subject to WITHDRAWAL from the course. It is your responsibility to know whether your instructor will withdraw you if you do not meet such deadlines. NOTE You must provide your instructor with a Composition II File Folder (available in the ACC bookstores) for your papers. Your instructor will keep your folder for one semester following your enrollment. You are responsible for making copies of any papers you want to keep for your files. Learning Lab Policy for ?B? and ?A? Papers Departmental policy allows students to receive only very general assistance writing ?B? and ?A? papers in Composition I and II. Examples of such assistance include pre-writing activities and review of writing principles and of grammar and documentation conventions in response to student questions. In addition, individual faculty are free to prohibit students from seeking specific kinds of or any assistance on the ?B? and ?A? papers and may do so by sending a memo to the learning labs and by stipulating the restriction in class syllabi. Scholastic Dishonesty Acts prohibited by the College for which discipline may be administered include scholastic dishonesty, including but not limited to cheating on an exam or quiz, plagiarizing, and unauthorized collaboration with another in preparing outside work. Academic work submitted by students shall be the result of their thought, research, or self-expression. Academic work is defined as, but not limited to tests, quizzes, whether taken electronically or on paper; projects, either individual or group; classroom presentations, and homework' (Student Handbook). I will not tolerate any form of academic dishonesty. Violation of ACC rules against the above will result in the filing of a formal complaint with the College, dismissal from this course, and a final grade of F. Students with Disabilities Each ACC campus offers support services for students with documented physical or psychological disabilities. Students with disabilities must request reasonable accommodations through the Office for Students with Disabilities on the campus where they expect to take the majority of their classes. Students are encouraged to do this three weeks before the start of the semester' (Student Handbook). Phones, Laptops, etc. Turn off and secure all electronic devices ? laptop computers, cellphones, Blackberries, pagers, etc. - in purse, pocket, or backpack upon entering the classroom. Regarding the use of laptops, it has been my experience that laptops are a distraction to other students. I encourage the taking of notes in ENGL 1302 (in fact, careful note-taking is crucial to success in this course), but please take your notes by hand. You can always type them up after class. It's a useful review technique. Contacting the Instructor I am available both before and after class, and as scheduled. Outside of office hours, you can contact me via voicemail or email. In either case I will respond within 24 hours. I am happy to answer questions about course policies and assignments, but read the course material first. Email Etiquette Should you have need to email me, make sure that your message has a clear subject line including the course number, your name, and the reason for your email. Emails with blank subject lines or vague subjects ("Hi!" or "question," to cite two examples) are indistinguishable from spam and will go into the trash unread, as will emails informing me that you were absent from class and asking "did I miss anything?"(Yes, you did. Check the syllabus.) Since I'm your English instructor, humor me and strive for clear and appropriate English (Edited American English) in your email communications. Classroom Etiquette Gentlemen, please remove your hat or cap while in the classroom. Ladies, personal grooming (hair, makeup, etc.) in class is not appropriate. Attendance/Tardiness Policy I will take roll every day at the beginning of class. If you come in after the roll is called, it is your responsibility to inform me of your presence so that I may mark you tardy rather than absent (but please wait until after class). Two late arrivals will count as one absence. Students with more than five absences (other than work days) will be ineligible to receive a final grade higher than C; I will not give warnings, so keep track of your attendance. The majority of the information in this course comes from lecture and handouts, so regular and punctual attendance is vital to your success. You are responsible for information covered in class, whether you were present or not. Please note that attendance is required on days marked CONFERENCE DAY. On these days I will set aside time for individual consultation on assignments, etc. On days marked WORK DAY, we will not meet as a class, but I will be available for consultation, submissions, etc. Reading Assignments/Quizzes Familiarize yourself with this syllabus, consult it daily, and keep up with the readings outlined in the schedule; I may give reading quizzes on the course material. These quizzes will be given at the beginning of class, and cannot be made up. Writing Assignment Due Dates Unless otherwise indicated all assignments are due on the dates given in the course schedule. I will return papers to you on the following class day. You must return edits, revisions, and rewrites to me by the next class, accompanied by the original essay. I cannot accept multiple submissions Your previous essay must be accepted before you will be allowed submit the next assignment! Format and Presentation All essays submitted for this course must conform to Modern Language Association (MLA) format ? I require that your essays be typewritten and consistently double-spaced, with standard margins. All essays must be stapled. Please use Courier New font (12-point). For more information and a sample page, see "Format for Essays" below. I will return improperly formatted, unstapled, or poorly printed submissions unevaluated. Withdrawal Policy I do not withdraw students for any reason. If you decide that you no longer wish to attend the course, you must fill out a withdrawal form and submit it to Admissions and Records. The final day to withdraw is posted on the college web site. After that date, you cannot withdraw from the course. The Texas Legislature has recently passed a bill that new ACC students should be aware of. According to a new state law, students enrolling for the first time in Fall 2007 or later at any Texas college or university may not withdraw (receive a W) from more than six courses during their undergraduate college career. Students are encouraged to select courses carefully, and contact an advisor or counselor for assistance. Incompletes I do not issue incompletes in ENGL 1302. Jimmy Stephens, M.S., M. Ed. Jimmy Stephens, M.S., M. Ed. The Short Story - Literary Analysis 24 26 Writing Assignment Guidelines and Expectations All essays submitted for this class should be typewritten and consistently double-spaced, and must conform to standard Modern Language Association format. Use 12-point Courier New (or Courier, if Courier New isn't available on your computer) for all essays, and consistently double-space your essay. On the first page only, in the upper left hand corner, place your name, the course number (ENGL 1302), my name, the number of the essay (Essay 1, Essay 2, whatever, and the date. On all pages, place your last name and the page number in the upper right-hand corner, one-half inch from the top of the page; use the header command in MS Word. Don't forget to give your essay a title - one that gives the reader some idea of what he's in for, and includes the name of the author and title of the story you're writing about (for example, "Taking Care of Grandma"). Skip two spaces and center it. Then skip another two spaces and begin your essay. Once you have printed your essay out, proofread it carefully. Then proofread it again. Make minor corrections neatly in ink. If you find more than one or two errors, correct them and print it out again. See the next page for a model of how your first page should look In order for a paper to be accepted it must Have a clear thesis statement, Use MLA format and documentation, Follow literary conventions, Be organized effectively, Use ample evidence and support from the primary text, Be reasonable free of grammatical, mechanical, and spelling issues, Use appropriate punctuation. Avoid common issues: Do not arbitrarily assign meaning. Use quoted material effectively. Remember that analysis is not plot summary. Do not confuse central idea with conflict. Submitting Papers All papers must be turned in in hard copy form in the ACC folder. No emailed submissions will be accepted. Papers will be marked ?Accept,? ?Edit,? ?Revise,? or ?Rewrite? with appropriate comments. ?A? and ?B? papers will only be marked ?Accept? or ?Rewrite?. Students who have not turned in paper #4 by the withdraw deadline will be asked to withdraw from the class. Due to the overwhelming number of papers that are often turned in on the withdraw deadline, those students turning in paper #4 for the first time on this day may not get the paper back until the second class day. Since this may jeopardize the student?s ability to turn in B and A papers by the end of the course, students are strongly encouraged to turn in paper #4 before the withdraw deadline. All papers will be kept by the teacher. Failure to turn in your folder at the end of the semester will negatively affect your grade. Lady Gaga ENGL 1302 Professor Stephens Essay 5: Analysis May 5, 2011 Persuasion and Pathos in Montville's "Requiem for a Super Featherweight" Leigh Montville's essay "Requiem for a Super Feather-weight" tells the story of a young man whose life is cut short by a prizefight gone terribly wrong. Montville, a writer for Sports Illustrated, presents the events surrounding the death of 23-year-old Jimmy Garcia as a narration of event (1). It is not immediately clear that the author's purpose is persuasion, but as the story progresses and the reader learns more about what happened to Garcia and the sort of person he was, it becomes obvious that Montville's intent is to argue for the abolition of boxing. Montville's primary aim of persuasion becomes clear near the end of the essay. He writes that the young man's condition after a title fight at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas "brought easy calls for the abolition of boxing," and adds that "[i]nstead of engaging in that debate," everyone should go inside a hospital room to see the consequences of the sport firsthand. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. The Short Story - Literary Analysis . 25 Instructions for Edit, Revision, and Rewrite If I have marked your essay 'edit,' 'revise,' or 'rewrite,' make sure that you hand in your previous version with the new one (if I ask for an edit and you make corrections on the original, of course, this does not apply). I cannot accept revisions or rewrites unless you attach the original essay. Please note that I do not mark all typos, misspellings, grammatical errors, etc. Rather, I will indicate general problems, mark some examples, and leave it to you to find and correct the rest, so be sure that you correct all instances of a problem. If you do not understand the correction mark, talk with me. If you are not sure what to do, come see me. I'll be glad to go over it with you. (You may also wish to visit the tutoring lab.) Be sure that you correct all errors. Otherwise, I will return the essay to you for further work. If I marked your essay 'edit,' make changes neatly and carefully on the original copy. If I request a 'clean copy' edit, please make the changes, print a new copy, and then hand both essays in together (stapled, please, with the new version on top). If I marked your essay 'revise,' note my comments and corrections, go through the essay carefully, make the changes I have requested (being careful not to introduce new errors), and print a new copy. Staple the original to your revision (again, new version on top) and hand them in together. If the essay receives 'rewrite,' it's an indication that it suffers from serious problems ? too-frequent mechanical errors, structural problems, etc. Note my written comments and corrections, talk with me about it, then put the original aside and start over, making sure that you follow my instructions carefully. When you make corrections and/or revisions, please follow these guidelines: Correct misspelled words; do not simply delete the word or substitute a new one you happen to know how to spell. Similarly, do not correct grammar errors, etc., by rewriting the passage to eliminate the error. For example, if you have a problem with subject-verb agreement, make sure that you understand the problem, and then correct it; do not revise the sentence to avoid the necessity of correcting the error. If I write 'awk' (awkward), 'unclear,' or 'ungr' (ungrammatical) next to a sentence or passage, be sure that you rewrite or revise it. Avoid making new mistakes in the process of revision. Learn from your errors, and take that knowledge forward into the next project. If you have a question, do not hesitate to ask me for clarification. I also urge you to take advantage of the expert help available in the ACC Tutoring Lab. Finally, keep in mind that, in accordance with English Department policy, I cannot consider your next essay until the previous one has been accepted. How Many Pages is 1,000 Words? Some students are concerned with the number of pages they are required to write in an essay. These students are not really fond of writing articles. They want to complete an essay as quickly as possible. But what if your teacher asks you to write an essay in 1000 words? You will be asking how ?many pages is 1000 words should be produced??You have to understand that essay writing is not all about the number of words or the number of pages. The more important thing is the article has a specific goal of writing and it entices audience to read it. The number of words and page requirements are simply guidelines for the class to use. These are instructor based rules that he or she may need to test. If you are curious how 1000 words will fit in an essay, let us give you some info about how many pages is 1000 words. The number of pages of an essay will be influenced not by the number of words but by the format and layout. One example is the spacing of the sentences. There are single spaced and double spaced essays. Usually, a single spaced essay page will contain at least 500 words. This is a general average. So if you have a double spaced essay, then there will be two pages per 500 words. Increasing the number further will give you four pages in 1000 words. Another factor to consider is the inclusion of miscellaneous pages. The number of pages will increase if you will add a cover page, table of contents and bibliography page. You may also add an illustration or diagram page. Now you know how many pages is 1000 words you can start formatting your essay. This article originally appeared on http://essay-blog.com/college-essays/how-many-pages-is-1000-words English 1302 Course Outline Unit One: Research Skills Learning Outcomes: Upon successful completion of the lesson, the student will be able to write a series of compositions in standard MLA format. Develop the correct MLA format for noting reference materials. Employ direct quotes, paraphrases, and summaries, from sources for notes. Learning Activities: Classroom lecture/discussion Reading Assignments : Handouts Unit Outline: Review paper requirements Review MLA standards Unit Two: Literary Analysis Learning Outcomes: Upon successful completion of this unit, the student will use the skills developed to write a series of short analytical compositions. Learning Activities: Classroom lecture/discussion Reading Assignments : Handouts Unit Outline: Discuss literary analysis and the terms associated with it Read examples of literary analysis from other students Read examples of literary analysis from professionals Unit Three: The Short Story Learning Outcomes: Upon successful completion of this unit, the student will Explain the major characteristics of modern fiction as they apply to the short story. Write an effective 300 word expository essay analyzing one or more of the short stories studied, demonstrating detailed understanding of the characteristics of short fiction as assigned. Learning Activities: Classroom lecture/discussion Reading Assignments Writing Assignments Unit Outline: Introduction to Short Story Plot Conflict Characterization Setting Point of View Symbolism Theme Analysis and interpretation of several short stories Short Story Exam (optional) Short Story Essay The Stories Stories for Class Discussion Connell ? ?The Most Dangerous Game? - Conflict Greene ? ?The Destructors? - Setting Brush ? ?The Birthday Party? - Conflict Cheever ? ?The Swimmer? ? Point of View Faulkner ? ?A Rose for Emily? - Symbolism Gilman ? ?The Yellow Wallpaper? Gordimer ? ?Once Upon a Time? Hauptmann - ?Bahnwärter Thiel? - Characterization Joyce ? ?The Dead? Joyce ? ?Eveline? - Character Mansfield ? ?Miss Brill? - Symbolism Marquez ? ?A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings? O?Connor ? ?The Drunkard? Salinger ? ?A Perfect Day for Bananafish? Updike ? ?A&P? Stories for Compositions Vonnegut - ?Harrison Bergeron? Nolan - ?Memento Mori? Kafka - ?Metamorphosis? Baldwin - ?Sonny?s Blues? Twain - ?The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County? Cisneros - ?The House on Mango Street? Jackson - ?The Lottery? Hurst - ?The Scarlet Ibis? O'Brien - ?The Things They Carried? Bradbury - ?The Utterly Perfect Murder? Hawthorne - ?Young Goodman Brown? Unit Four: The Novel Learning Outcomes: Upon successful completion of this unit, the student will Explore the differences and similarities of the two types of narrative fiction?the short story and the novel. Explain the major elements of fiction and how they apply to the novel. Write an effective 300 word expository essay analyzing the novel read in class demonstrating understanding of the characteristics of the novel form. Learning Activities: Classroom lecture/Discussion Reading Assignments Unit Outline: Review of fictional elements and narrative Discussion of differences and similarities of the short story and the novel In-class discussion and analysis of the novel selected by the instructor or by the student with instructor approval In-class exam (optional) Novel essay Unit Five: Drama Learning Outcomes: Upon successful completion of this unit, the student will Explain the major elements of drama. Write an effective 300 word expository essay analyzing the drama discussed in class. Learning Activities: Classroom lecture/discussion Reading assignment: Macbeth Unit Outline: An introduction to drama The major elements of drama Plot Conflict Characterization Dialogue Setting Theme Spectacle A brief history of the two major types of drama Comedy Tragedy In-class discussion and interpretation of at least one drama Drama exam (optional) Drama essay English The Play ? Macbeth by William Shakespeare Unit Six: Poetry Unit Outcomes: Upon successful completion of this unit, the student will Be able to differentiate between poetry and non-poetry Explain the major characteristics of poetry as well as the major types of poetry. Analyze and interpret a variety of poems. Write and effective 300 word expository essay interpreting a poem selected by the instructor. Learning Activities: Classroom lecture/discussion Reading Assignments Unit Outline: Introduction to Poetry The major characteristics of poetry Theme Word choice Imagery and figurative language Sound The forms of poetry Closed forms Open forms In-class discussion of a variety of selected poems In-class exam (optional) Poetry essay Composition Assignments Paper #1: Conflict and Setting Choose from one of the following stories: ?The Scarlet Ibis? or ?Harrison Bergeron.? Write a well-developed analytical essay focusing on either conflict or setting. Clearly identify the central idea of the story in the thesis statement. Explain what the conflict or the setting contributes to the central idea and support this conclusion with examples from the story. You may choose to analyze both elements. If you do so, you must describe their relationship to each other as well as their contribution to the central idea. Minimum length: 300 words Paper #2: Character and Point of View Choose from one of the following short stories: ?The Utterly Perfect Murder?, ?The House on Mango Street?, ?The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County?, or ?Memento Mori.? Write a well-developed analytical essay focusing on either character or point of view. Clearly identify the central idea of the story in the thesis statement. Explain what the characterization or the point of view contributes to the central idea and support this conclusion with examples from the story. You may choose to analyze both elements. If you do so, you must describe their relationship to each other as well as their contribution to the central idea. Minimum length: 300 words Paper #3: Language and Tone Choose from one of the following short stories: ?The Lottery? or ?The Things They Carried.? Write a well-developed analytical essay focusing on either language or tone. Clearly identify the central idea of the story in the thesis statement. Explain what the language or the tone contributes to the central idea and support this conclusion with examples from the story. You may choose to analyze both elements. If you do so, you must describe their relationship to each other as well as their contribution to the central idea. Minimum length: 300 words Paper #4: Analysis of all seven elements Choose from one of the following short stories: ?Metamorphosis?, ?Sonny?s Blues?, or ?Young Goodman Brown.? Write a well-developed analytical essay that demonstrates how the conflict, setting, characterization, point of view, language, and tone each contributes to the central idea (stated in the thesis statement). Use examples from the story to support your discussion of each element. Include at least one quote or paraphrase of a professional criticism to support your conclusions. Include a works cited (on a separate page) with all of the primary and secondary sources listed in MLA format. Parenthetical citations must be used for all secondary sources. Minimum length: 900 words ?B? Paper: Author Study Write a well-developed analytical essay that focuses on how an author uses an element in different short stories. Compare and contrast the uses of the element in different stories by the same author. Identify commonalities that mark an author?s style and support with examples from the stories. Choices for author studies will be given in April. Minimum length: 1000 words. ?A? Paper: Compare and Contrast Write a well-developed analytical essay that compares and contrasts thematic elements of two stories. In addition to the analysis and comparison of both central ideas, choose at least three additional elements for comparison. Choices for story pairs will be given in April. Minimum length: 1000 words English 1302 First Day of Class Exit Pass and Syllabus Contract What is your professor?s email address? ______________________________________ How must all papers be formatted? __________________________________________ How many papers must be ultimately be accepted in order to receive an ?A? in the class? ___ When is the last day to turn in paper #4 for the first time?_________________________ What percentage of preparation and participation checkmarks must you have in order to be eligible to write an ?A? paper? ____________ I ___________________________________________(print your name) acknowledge that I have read the syllabus, and I understand the expectations of the class. I understand the grading system and recognize the importance of turning in my work in a timely manner in order to receive the grade I want. I also understand the importance of arriving to class on time and prepared. According to ACC policy, there are no excused absences. If you must be gone for a school activity, you are still responsible for all assignments for that class. You will be dropped for excessive absences. _________________________________________ ___________Signature Date _________________________________________________________ Email Address At this time, the grade that I am working towards in this class is a(n) _____________ Things you should know about me. (Use other side if desired). Literary Analysis: The Short Story Essential Questions Must a story have a moral, heroes, and villains? How is the point of view of the writer and his/her experience of the world expressed in written work? How do the arts contribute to a quality life? How is self reflection useful in the writing process? How do skills and various communication forms empower individuals to clarify their points of view? How can literary elements be combined to create an original work? How is communication used to portray different perspectives? How does one support one's personal point of view and validate ideas through communication? What methods can be employed to gather, screen, and organize for effective communication? How does effective communication of different perspectives build understanding? How do people select and adapt communication forms for a specific audience? How does using and understanding conventions empower individuals? Objectives Students will understand the primary and secondary conflict in ?The Most Dangerous Game??  Students will understand the ways in which an author employs tension between the narrator's tone and the story's setting to depict wanton behavior in Greene?s ?The Destructors? Students will analyze Marquez?s use of point of view, fantasy, and imagery in ?A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.? Students will understand the techniques a short story author can employ in character development in Gordimer?s ?Once upon a Time.? Students will understand how an Cheever?s ?The Swimmer? conveys a character?s physicality, personality, life history, and values. Students will understand how John Updike's use of stylistic devices such as point of view, figurative language, and irony effectively develop the character of Sammy in ?The A&P.? Students will demonstrate an understanding of how the narration of Salinger?s ?A Perfect Day for Bananafish? affects its meaning and conveys an author?s attitudes. Students will understand how an author uses plot to evoke emotional responses from the reader, and relies on plot to convey a theme in a brief time in Mansfield?s ?Miss Brill.? Students will understand how Faulkner uses plot structure in "A Rose for Emily" to create suspense? Students will understand the importance of plot sequence and how it can render a story compelling to the reader in O?Connor?s ?The Drunkard? 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NCTE/IRA Standards 1 - Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works. 2 - Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience. 3 - Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics). 4- Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience. 5- Students develop an understanding of and respect for diversity in language use, patterns, and dialects across cultures, ethnic groups, geographic regions, and social roles. 6- Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities. 7 - Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information). TEKS Covered In This Unit §110.45. English IV (One Credit). (b) Knowledge and skills. Literary Analysis: Pre-Assessment The Prose Passage Essay Timed Writing Exam (40 Min.) In the following passage from the short story "The Dead," James Joyce presents an insight into the character of Gabriel. Write a well-organized essay in which you discuss various aspects of Gabriel's character that Joyce reveals to the reader and to Gabriel himself. Refer to such techniques and devices as imagery, point of view, motif, diction, and syntax. _______________________________________ ?The Dead? By James Joyce She was fast asleep.Gabriel, leaning on his elbow, looked for a few moments unresentfully on her tangled hair and half-open mouth, listening to her deep-drawn breath. So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. He watched her while she slept, as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife. His curious eyes rested long upon her face and on her hair: and, as he thought of what she must have been then, in that time of her first girlish beauty, a strange, friendly pity for her entered his soul. He did not like to say even to himself that her face was no longer beautiful, but he knew that it was no longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death.Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the chair over which she had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string dangled to the floor. One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen down: the fellow of it lay upon its side. He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded? From his aunt's supper, from his own foolish speech, from the wine and dancing, the merry-making when saying good-night in the hall, the pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow. Poor Aunt Julia! She, too, would soon be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his horse. He had caught that haggard look upon her face for a moment when she was singing Arrayed for the Bridal. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in that same drawing-room, dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds would be drawn down and Aunt Kate would be sitting beside him, crying and blowing her nose and telling him how Julia had died. He would cast about in his mind for some words that might console her, and would find only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that would happen very soon. An Analysis of James Joyce's Short Story ?The Dead: Loving and Losing? Adapted from: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/39900/an_analysis_of_james_joyces_short_story.html?cat=38 At first glance, James Joyce?s The Dead appears to be a story about the annual Christmas party thrown by the Morkan sisters and their niece, Mary Jane. It goes into detail about several of the guests in attendance and describes the wonderful evening they all had, including singing, dancing, and a feast fit for a king. But when examining the story more closely, it becomes evident that there is more to this account then just that on the surface. The Dead is a story about love, lost loves, and the inability to forget those who have been loved and lost. Although one might think the Morkans are at the center of the story, hosting their yearly get together, The Dead actually revolves around Gabriel and Gretta Conroy. At the beginning of the party, Gabriel and Gretta appear to be a very happy couple, laughing and joking about goloshes. Gabriel loves Gretta very much; his love is clearly shown when he rents a hotel room for the two of them following the party. Gabriel worried that if they traveled home directly after the party Gretta might become ill from the extreme cold weather. He loves her deeply and is more concerned with her health than getting home and back to his children quickly. Throughout the dinner Gretta reciprocates the love, until something suddenly changes her attitude for the night. As the party was winding down, Gabriel was looking forward to a romantic night with his wife. While preparing to leave, he noticed her leaning on the banister, transfixed by a song Mr. D?Arcy was singing in the adjacent room. The song, The Lass of Aughrim, destroyed Gretta?s happy-go-lucky attitude and left her in a solemn state. Gabriel notices a change in his wife?s behavior, but he isn?t able to figure out what the problem is. Gabriel is certain that there is something is bothering his wife as they are settling into their hotel room. He pressures her to tell him what is on her mind. She finally reveals to him that the song Mr. D?Arcy sung upset her, because it reminded her of a boy from her past, Michael Furey. He was Gretta?s first love, and had died for her when he was only seventeen years old. It?s clear from her hysterical sobbing that Gretta has still not come to terms with losing her first love. During his dinner table speech, Gabriel declares that although people may have sad memories from the past, you must get over them and live for today and for the future. He says: There are always in gatherings such as this sadder thoughts that will recur to our minds: thoughts of the past, of youth, of changes, of absent faces that we miss here to-night. Our path through life is strewn with many such sad memories: and were we to brood upon them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely with our work among the living. We have all of us living duties and living affections which claim, and rightly claim, our strenuous endeavours. Gretta?s reaction later that evening to her memories of Michael proves Gabriel wrong. Gabriel finally realizes that you can never forget lost loves, and this upsets him. He realizes he was not Gretta?s first love and she will always hold the memories of another man within her heart. He is also made aware that he has never felt true, deep love; the kind of love that Gretta saw in Michael?s eyes when he was willing to die for her. He knows that he has never experienced love like this, and his life now seems empty without it. Gabriel also realizes that he doesn?t know his wife well at all, having been married to her for years and never hearing the story of Michael Furey before. He has been selfish and self centered his whole life, only caring about himself. This behavior can be seen in the beginning of the story, when Gabriel upsets Lily with his question about an upcoming marriage. Gabriel doesn?t think twice before speaking about whether or not his words might hurt Lily. He ends up offending her and he doesn?t even know what he has done wrong. This selfishness carried over to his own marriage. In the years that he has been with Gretta, Gabriel never even thought to ask her about any past loves. Then he seems surprised to find out she had been involved with a boy before meeting him. Gabriel should take other people into account and not just focus on himself. He now realizes this?but it took the dead Michael Furey to teach him this lesson. If one thing is to be realized from this short story, it should be that love is hard to come by. When two people are truly, madly, and deeply in love, they must embrace it while they still have the opportunity. If the opportunity if passed up, it might be lost forever. And even if a replacement is found, the first true love will never be forgotten. The Prose Passage Essay: ?The Dead? Discussion WRITING THE OPENING PARAGRAPH Your opening statement is the one that sets the tone of your essay and possibly raises the expectations of the reader. Spend time on your first paragraph to maximize your score. Make certain that your topic is very clear. This reinforces the idea that you fully understand what is expected of you and what you will communicate to the reader. Generally, identify both the text and its author in this first paragraph. A suggested approach is to relate a direct quotation from the passage to the topic. Tip: Consider the "philosophy of firsts." It is a crucial strategy to spend focused time on the first part of the question and on the first paragraph of the essay because: It establishes the direction and tone of your essay. It gives you the guidelines for what to develop in your essay. It connects you to the reader. If you focus on the beginning, the rest will fall into place. A wonderful thing happens after much practice, highlighting, and note-taking. Your mind starts to focus automatically. It is the winning edge that can take an average essay and raise it to a higher level. Highlight these points to see if you've done them. You may be surprised at what is actually there. Have you included author and title? Have you addressed the character of Gabriel? Have you specifically mentioned the techniques you will refer to in your essay? Here are four sample opening paragraphs that address all of the criteria: In "The Dead" by James Joyce, the character Gabriel is revealed through diction, point of view, and imagery as he watches his wife sleep. Poor Gabriel! Who would have thought he knew so little about himself and his life. And yet, in "The Dead," James Joyce, through diction, point of view, and imagery, makes it clear to the reader and to Gabriel that there is much to reveal about his character. "Yes, yes: this would happen very soon." And, yes, very soon the reader of the excerpt from Joyce's "The Dead" gets to know the character of Gabriel. Through diction, point of view, and imagery, we are introduced to Gabriel and what he thinks of himself. "The Dead." How apt a title. James Joyce turns his reader into a fly on the wall as Gabriel is about to realize the many losses in his life. Death pervades the passage, from his sleeping wife to his dying aunt. Each of these opening paragraphs is an acceptable beginning to an Literature exam essay. Note what each of these paragraphs has: Each has identified the title and author. Each has stated which technique/devices will be used. Each has stated the purpose of analyzing these techniques/devices. Now, note what is different about each opening paragraph. Sample A restates the question without anything extra. It is to the point, so much so that it does nothing more than repeat the question. It's correct, but it does not really pique the reader's interest. (Use this type of opening if you feel unsure of or uncomfortable with the prompt.) Sample B reveals the writer's attitude toward the subject. The writer has already determined that Gabriel is flawed and indicates an under-standing of how Gabriel's character is revealed in the passage. Sample C, with its direct quotation, places the reader immediately into the passage. The reader quickly begins to hear the writer's voice through his or her choice of words (diction). Sample D, at first glance, reveals a mature, confident writer who is not afraid to imply the prompt's criteria. Note: There are many other types of opening paragraphs that could do the job as well. The paragraphs above are just a few samples. Into which of the above samples would you classify your opening paragraph? WRITING THE BODY OF THE PROSE PASSAGE ESSAY When you write the body of your essay, take only 15?20 minutes. Time yourself and try your best to finish within that time frame. What should I include in the body of the prose passage essay? Obviously, this is where you present your interpretation and the points you wish to make that are related to the prompt. Use specific references and details from the passage. Don't always paraphrase the original; refer directly to it. Place quotation marks around those words and phrases that you extract from the passage. Use "connective tissue" in your essay to establish adherence to the question. Use the repetition of key ideas from your opening paragraph. Try using "echo words" (i.e., synonyms, such as death/loss/passing or character/persona/personality). Create transitions from one paragraph to the next. To understand the process, carefully read the following sample paragraphs. Each develops one of the categories and techniques/devices asked for in the prompt. Notice the specific references and the "connective tissue." Also, notice that details that do no apply to the prompt have been ignored. This paragraph develops imagery. Joyce creates imagery to lead his reader to sense the cloud of death that pervades Gabriel's world. From its very title "The Dead," the reader is prepared for loss. Just what has Gabriel lost: his wife, his confidence, his job, a friend, a relative, what? As his "wife slept," Gabriel sees her "half-open mouth" and "listens" to her "deep-drawn breath." The reader almost senses this to be a death watch. The images about the room reinforce this sense of doom. One boot is "limp" and the other is "fallen down." Picturing the future, Gabriel sees a "drawing-room dressed in black" with blinds "drawn down" and his Aunt Kate "crying" and "telling him how Julia had died." And to underscore his own feelings of internal lifelessness, he can only find "lame and useless" words of comfort. This paragraph develops the motif of time. Time is a constant from the beginning to the end of the passage. In the first paragraph, Gabriel is in the present while thinking of the past. He is an observer, watching his wife as he, himself, is observed by the narrator, and as we, as readers, observe the entire scene. Time moves the reader and Gabriel through the experience. Immediately, we spend a "few moments" with Gabriel as he goes back and forth in time assessing his relationship with his wife. He recognizes she "had had romance in the past." But, "it hardly pains him now." He thinks of what she had been "then" in her "girlish" beauty, which may indicate his own aging. His "strange, friendly pity," because she is "no longer beautiful," may-be self-pity, as well. In the next paragraph, we are with Gabriel as he reflects on his emotional "riot" only an hour before. However, he jumps to the future because he can't sustain self-examination. He chooses to allow himself to jump to this future and a new subject?Aunt Julia's death. In this future, he continues to see only his inability and incompetence. For Gabriel, all this will happen "very soon." This passage develops diction. Gabriel appears to be a man who is on the outside of his life. Joyce's diction reveals his passive nature. Gabriel "looked on" and "watched" his wife sleeping. He spent time "listening to her breath" and was "hardly pained by his role in her life." His eyes "rest" on her, and he "thinks of the past." All of Gabriel's actions are as weak as a "limp" and "fallen down" boot, "inert in the face of life." He is in direct contrast to Michael Furey, who has "braved death." And he knows this about himself. The narrator's diction reveals that Gabriel "did not like to say even to himself? implying that he is too weak to face the truth. Later in the text, Gabriel's word choice further indicates his insecurity. He is troubled by his "riot of emotions," his "foolish speech." It is obvious that Gabriel will not take such risks again. This passage develops style. Joyce's very straightforward writing style supports the conclusions he wishes the reader to draw about the character of Gabriel. Most sentences are in the subject/verb, simple sentence form, reflecting the plain, uncomplicated character of Gabriel. Joyce employs a third person narrator to further reinforce Gabriel's detachment from his own circumstances. We watch him observing his own life with little or no connection on his part. He wonders at his "riot of emotions." All this is presented without Joyce using obvious poetic devices. This punctuates the lack of "romance" in Gabriel's life when compared with that of Michael Furey. Tip: Start a study group. Approach an essay as a team. After you've deconstructed the prompt, have each person write a paragraph on a separate area of the question. Then come together and discuss what was written. You'll be amazed at how much fun this is because the work will carry you away. This is a chance to explore exciting ideas. We urge you to spend more time developing the body paragraphs than worrying about a concluding paragraph, especially one that begins with "In conclusion," or "In summary." In such a brief essay, the reader will have no problem remembering what you have already stated. It is not necessary to repeat yourself in a summary-type final paragraph. If you want to make a final statement, try to link your ideas to a particularly effective line or image from the passage. Note: Look at the last line of Sample B on motif. For Gabriel, all this will happen "very soon." This final sentence would be fine as the conclusion to the essay. A conclusion does not have to be a paragraph. It can be the writer's final remark or observation presented in a sentence or two. SAMPLE STUDENT ESSAYS Following are two actual student essays followed by a rubric and comments on each. Read both of the samples in sequence to clarify the differences between "high" and "mid-range" essays. Student Essay B In the excerpt from the short story ?The Dead? from Dubliners by James Joyce, the author describes some personality traits of the character Gabriel as he sits watching a sleeping woman. The Point of view from which this excerpt is expressed helps the reader to get to know Gabriel because the narrator is omniscient and knows how Gabriel perceives things and what he is thinking. With the use of many literary devices such as imagery, diction, and syntax, the reader is able to see that Gabriel is an observant and reflective person, but he is also detached. Gabriel comes across as observant, because throughout the entire passage he is observing a woman, his wife, sleeping. He scans the room looking over everything and taking note of everything. An example of this is looking at ?her tangled hair and half-open mouth, listening to her deep drawn breath.? The author uses the technique of syntax (?deep-drawn breath? and ?half-open mouth?) in the above quotation to show us exactly what Gabriel is seeing. Gabriel notices many details, and they are described so that the reader can clearly formulate a picture of what he is gazing at. This imagery can be seen in lines such as the one where the woman?s boots are being described. ?One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen down; the fellow of it lay upon the side.? The diction used such as ?limp? and ?upright,? are concrete words that create clear pictures. Another reason that Gabriel comes across as observant is because he catches and notices little things. For example, he ?caught? the ?haggard look? on his Aunt Julia?s face. Resulting from the fact that Gabriel is observant, he is also reflective. He thinks over past events that had happened and wonders what caused them and why he did what he did. In the first paragraph he reflects on his wife?s ?fading beauty,? what she used to look like, and the story of the death of Michael Furey. He realizes that it is a possibility that she had not told him the entire story concerning the boy?s death. He further reflects when he is thinking about his emotional outburst. He asks himself many questions including ?From what had it preceded?? A feeling of detachment is also present. The way he looks at his wife ?as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife? shows that he is viewing his own life from an objective standpoint. He is able to look at his own life as though it wasn?t his. The sentence that reads ?it hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life,? further exemplifies this feeling of detachment. Feelings that he used to feel on longer even touched him. He was able to recognize them yet remain separate. In the second paragraph Gabriel continues to come across as remote. He is able to picture and describe in great detail the death and funeral of his Aunt Julie. He narrates the future drastic event in a matter-of-fact way. Gabriel goes so far as to describe what he will be thinking at the time of his Aunt Julia?s death which is ?he would cast about in his mind for some words that might console her (his Aunt Kate), and would find only lame and useless ones?. This statement finalizes the idea that Gabriel is a person who is, at least to some degree, detached from his own life. Even though the passage is fairly short, the author is able to impart a fair amount of information concerning the character Gabriel. It becomes apparent that he possesses the qualities of observance, reflection, and detachment. These qualities are all interconnected because of the fact that he is observant leading to his ability to reflect on his actions and actions of others. This in turn leads to his detachment, because when he reflects on his life he does it from the standpoint of a third-person narrator. The author?s use literary techniques helps to convey these personality traits of Gabriel of a reader. Rubrics Let's take a look at a set of rubrics for this prose passage essay. (If you want to see actual rubrics as used in a recent Lit exam, log on to the College Board Website: www.collegeboard.org/ap ) As you probably know, essays are rated on a 9?1 scale, with 9 the highest and 1 the lowest. Since we are not with you to personally rate your essay and to respond to your style and approach, we will, instead, list the criteria for high-, middle-, and low-range papers. These criteria are based on our experience with rubrics and reading Literature exam essays. A high range essay can be a 9 or an 8. Middle refers to essays in the 7, 6, 5 range. And the low scoring essays are rated 4, 3, 2, 1. After reading the following rubrics, evaluate the two essays that you have just read. Tip: Let's be honest with each other. We all can recognize a 9 essay. It sings, and we wish we had written it. It's wonderful that the essays don't all have to sing the same song with the same words and rhythm. Conversely, we can, unfortunately, recognize the 1 or 2 paper which is off key, and we are relieved not to have written one like it. Rating the Student Essays High-Range Essay (9?8) Indicates complete understanding of the prompt. Distinguishes between what Gabriel acknowledges about himself and what the reader comes to know about him. Explores the complexity of Gabriel's character. Identifies and analyzes Joyce's literary techniques, such as imagery, diction, point of view, motif, and style. Cites specific references to the passage. Illustrates and supports the points being made. Is clear, well-organized, and coherent. Reflects the ability to manipulate language at an advanced level. Contains only minor errors or flaws, if any. Tip: Rarely, a 7 essay can make the jump into the high range because of its more mature style and perception. Middle-Range Essay (7?6?5) Refers accurately to the prompt. Refers accurately to the literary devices used by Joyce. Provides a less thorough analysis of Gabriel's character than the higher-rated paper. Is less adept at linking techniques to the purpose of the passage. Demonstrates writing that is adequate to convey the writer's intent. May not be sensitive to the implications about Gabriel's character. Tip: The 7 paper demonstrates a more consistent command of college-level writing than does the 5 or 6 paper. A 5 paper does the minimum required by the prompt. It relies on generalizations and sketchy analysis. It is often sidetracked by plot, and the references may be limited or simplistic. Low-Range Essay (4?3?2?1) Does not respond adequately to the prompt. Demonstrates insufficient and/or inaccurate understanding of the passage. Does not link literary devices to Gabriel's character. Underdevelops and/or inaccurately analyzes literary techniques. Fails to demonstrate an understanding of Gabriel's character. Demonstrates weak control of the elements of diction, syntax, and organization Tip: A 4 or 3 essay may do no more than paraphrase sections of the passage rather than analyze Gabriel's character. A 2 essay may merely summarize the passage. (No matter how well written, a summary can never earn more than a 2.) A 1?2 essay indicates a major lack of understanding and control. It fails to comprehend the prompt and/or the passage. It may also indicate severe writing problems. Student Essay A This is a high-range paper for the following reasons: Is on task. Shows complete understanding of the prompt and the passage. Indicates perceptive, subtle analysis (line 8). Maintains excellent topic adherence (lines 9, 17, 28, 39). Uses good "connective tissue" (repetition of key words). Chooses good specific references (lines 11, 12, 21, 35). Knows how to distinguish between the author and the narrator. Understands point of view well. Makes suggestions and inferences (lines 7, 20). Demonstrates good critical thinking. Is perceptive about syntax and the style of author (lines 27?33). Links techniques with character (line 34). Demonstrates mature language manipulation (line 34). Understands function of diction and motif (lines 39?44). Tip: It's best to omit extraneous judgmental words from your essay (line 44). This is obviously a mature, critical reader and writer. Using subtle inferences and implications, the writer demonstrates an understanding of the character of Gabriel as both Joyce presents him and as Gabriel views himself. There is nothing extraneous or repetitious in this essay. Each point leads directly and compellingly to the next aspect of Gabriel's character. This is definitely a strong, high-range essay. Student Essay B This is a middle-range essay for the following reasons: Sets up an introduction which indicates the techniques that will be developed, but neglects to clearly set up the required discussion of how Gabriel views himself. Immediately establishes that the essay will address Gabriel's character as drawn by the narrator and seen by the reader. Addresses three aspects of Gabriel's character without fully developing the analysis of literary techniques. Adheres to the essay's topic. Uses "connective tissue" (lines 21, 28). Uses "echo words" (lines 8, 9, 10). Uses citations from the passages. Isolates some details to illustrate Gabriel's character (lines 31-32, 39). Confuses syntax with diction (lines 12-13). Lacks development of literary technique in paragraph 4. Displays faulty diction and syntax. Does not develop an important part of the prompt?how Gabriel views himself. Incorporates faulty logic at times (lines 44-49). This essay is a solid, middle-range paper. The writer has a facility with literary analysis. Even though there are flashes of real insight, they are not sustained throughout the essay. There is a strong opening paragraph which makes it clear to the reader what the topic of the paper is. The writer obviously grasps Gabriel's character and the needed details to support the character analysis. But the weakness in this paper is the writer's incomplete development of the relationship of literary techniques to character analysis. Note: Both essays have concluding paragraphs that are repetitive and largely unnecessary. It is best to avoid this type of ending. Rapid Review The following points will provide you with a quick refresher when needed. Familiarize yourself with the types of prose questions (prompts). Highlight the prompt and understand all the required tasks. Time your essay carefully. Spend sufficient time "working the passage" before you begin writing. Mark up the passage. Create a strong opening paragraph. Refer often to the passage. Use concrete details and quotes to support your ideas. Always stay on topic. Avoid plot summary. Include transitions and echo words. Check the models and rubrics for guidance for self-evaluation. Practice?vary the question and your approach. Share ideas with others Literary Analysis Rubric 9-8 Superior papers specific in their references, cogent in their definitions, and free of plot summary that is not relevant to the question. These essays need not be without flaws, but they demonstrate the writer's ability to discuss a literary work with insight and understanding and to control a wide range of the elements of effective composition. At all times they stay focused on the prompt. 7-6 These papers are less thorough, less perceptive or less specific than 9-8 papers. These essays are well-written but with less maturity and control than the top papers. They demonstrate the writer's ability to analyze a literary work, but they reveal a more limited understanding than do the papers in the 9-8 range. Generally, 6 essays present a less sophisticated analysis and less consistent command of the elements of effective writing than essays scored 7. 5 Safe and ?plastic,? superficiality characterizes these essays. Discussion of meaning may be pedestrian, mechanical, or inadequately related to the chosen details. Typically, these essays reveal simplistic thinking and/or immature writing. They usually demonstrate inconsistent control over the elements of composition and are not as well conceived, organized, or developed as the upper-half papers. On the other hand, the writing is sufficient to convey the writer's ideas and stays focused on the prompt. 4-3 Discussion is likely to be unpersuasive, perfunctory, underdeveloped or misguided. The meaning they deduce may be inaccurate or insubstantial and not clearly related to the question. Part of the question may be omitted altogether. The writing may convey the writer's ideas, but it reveals weak control over such elements as diction, organization, syntax or grammar. Typically, these essays contain significant misinterpretations of the question or the work they discuss; they may also contain little, if any, supporting evidence, and practice paraphrase and plot summary at the expense of analysis. 2-1 These essays compound the weakness of essays in the 4-3 range and are frequently unacceptably brief. They are poorly written on several counts, including many distracting errors in grammar and mechanics. Although the writer may have made some effort to answer the question, the views presented have little clarity or coherence. Getting Started: ?The Most Dangerous Game? http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/183078/june-20-2007/bloomberg-for-president The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell "Off there to the right--somewhere--is a large island," said Whitney." It's rather a mystery--" "What island is it?" Rainsford asked. "The old charts call it `Ship-Trap Island,"' Whitney replied." A suggestive name, isn't it? Sailors have a curious dread of the place. I don't know why. Some superstition--" "Can't see it," remarked Rainsford, trying to peer through the dank tropical night that was palpable as it pressed its thick warm blackness in upon the yacht. "You've good eyes," said Whitney, with a laugh," and I've seen you pick off a moose moving in the brown fall bush at four hundred yards, but even you can't see four miles or so through a moonless Caribbean night." "Nor four yards," admitted Rainsford. "Ugh! It's like moist black velvet." "It will be light enough in Rio," promised Whitney. "We should make it in a few days. I hope the jaguar guns have come from Purdey's. We should have some good hunting up the Amazon. Great sport, hunting." "The best sport in the world," agreed Rainsford. "For the hunter," amended Whitney. "Not for the jaguar." "Don't talk rot, Whitney," said Rainsford. "You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?" "Perhaps the jaguar does," observed Whitney. "Bah! They've no understanding." "Even so, I rather think they understand one thing--fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death." "Nonsense," laughed Rainsford. "This hot weather is making you soft, Whitney. Be a realist. The world is made up of two classes--the hunters and the huntees. Luckily, you and I are hunters. Do you think we've passed that island yet?" "I can't tell in the dark. I hope so." "Why? " asked Rainsford. "The place has a reputation--a bad one." "Cannibals?" suggested Rainsford. "Hardly. Even cannibals wouldn't live in such a God-forsaken place. But it's gotten into sailor lore, somehow. Didn't you notice that the crew's nerves seemed a bit jumpy today?" "They were a bit strange, now you mention it. Even Captain Nielsen--" "Yes, even that tough-minded old Swede, who'd go up to the devil himself and ask him for a light. Those fishy blue eyes held a look I never saw there before. All I could get out of him was `This place has an evil name among seafaring men, sir.' Then he said to me, very gravely, `Don't you feel anything?'--as if the air about us was actually poisonous. Now, you mustn't laugh when I tell you this--I did feel something like a sudden chill. "There was no breeze. The sea was as flat as a plate-glass window. We were drawing near the island then. What I felt was a--a mental chill; a sort of sudden dread." "Pure imagination," said Rainsford. "One superstitious sailor can taint the whole ship's company with his fear." "Maybe. But sometimes I think sailors have an extra sense that tells them when they are in danger. Sometimes I think evil is a tangible thing--with wave lengths, just as sound and light have. An evil place can, so to speak, broadcast vibrations of evil. Anyhow, I'm glad we're getting out of this zone. Well, I think I'll turn in now, Rainsford." "I'm not sleepy," said Rainsford. "I'm going to smoke another pipe up on the afterdeck." "Good night, then, Rainsford. See you at breakfast." "Right. Good night, Whitney." There was no sound in the night as Rainsford sat there but the muffled throb of the engine that drove the yacht swiftly through the darkness, and the swish and ripple of the wash of the propeller. Rainsford, reclining in a steamer chair, indolently puffed on his favorite brier. The sensuous drowsiness of the night was on him." It's so dark," he thought, "that I could sleep without closing my eyes; the night would be my eyelids--" An abrupt sound startled him. Off to the right he heard it, and his ears, expert in such matters, could not be mistaken. Again he heard the sound, and again. Somewhere, off in the blackness, someone had fired a gun three times. Rainsford sprang up and moved quickly to the rail, mystified. He strained his eyes in the direction from which the reports had come, but it was like trying to see through a blanket. He leaped upon the rail and balanced himself there, to get greater elevation; his pipe, striking a rope, was knocked from his mouth. He lunged for it; a short, hoarse cry came from his lips as he realized he had reached too far and had lost his balance. The cry was pinched off short as the blood-warm waters of the Caribbean Sea dosed over his head. He struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the wash from the speeding yacht slapped him in the face and the salt water in his open mouth made him gag and strangle. Desperately he struck out with strong strokes after the receding lights of the yacht, but he stopped before he had swum fifty feet. A certain coolheadedness had come to him; it was not the first time he had been in a tight place. There was a chance that his cries could be heard by someone aboard the yacht, but that chance was slender and grew more slender as the yacht raced on. He wrestled himself out of his clothes and shouted with all his power. The lights of the yacht became faint and ever-vanishing fireflies; then they were blotted out entirely by the night. Rainsford remembered the shots. They had come from the right, and doggedly he swam in that direction, swimming with slow, deliberate strokes, conserving his strength. For a seemingly endless time he fought the sea. He began to count his strokes; he could do possibly a hundred more and then-- Rainsford heard a sound. It came out of the darkness, a high screaming sound, the sound of an animal in an extremity of anguish and terror. He did not recognize the animal that made the sound; he did not try to; with fresh vitality he swam toward the sound. He heard it again; then it was cut short by another noise, crisp, staccato. "Pistol shot," muttered Rainsford, swimming on. Ten minutes of determined effort brought another sound to his ears--the most welcome he had ever heard--the muttering and growling of the sea breaking on a rocky shore. He was almost on the rocks before he saw them; on a night less calm he would have been shattered against them. With his remaining strength he dragged himself from the swirling waters. Jagged crags appeared to jut up into the opaqueness; he forced himself upward, hand over hand. Gasping, his hands raw, he reached a flat place at the top. Dense jungle came down to the very edge of the cliffs. What perils that tangle of trees and underbrush might hold for him did not concern Rainsford just then. All he knew was that he was safe from his enemy, the sea, and that utter weariness was on him. He flung himself down at the jungle edge and tumbled headlong into the deepest sleep of his life. When he opened his eyes he knew from the position of the sun that it was late in the afternoon. Sleep had given him new vigor; a sharp hunger was picking at him. He looked about him, almost cheerfully. "Where there are pistol shots, there are men. Where there are men, there is food," he thought. But what kind of men, he wondered, in so forbidding a place? An unbroken front of snarled and ragged jungle fringed the shore. He saw no sign of a trail through the closely knit web of weeds and trees; it was easier to go along the shore, and Rainsford floundered along by the water. Not far from where he landed, he stopped. Some wounded thing--by the evidence, a large animal--had thrashed about in the underbrush; the jungle weeds were crushed down and the moss was lacerated; one patch of weeds was stained crimson. A small, glittering object not far away caught Rainsford's eye and he picked it up. It was an empty cartridge. "A twenty-two," he remarked. "That's odd. It must have been a fairly large animal too. The hunter had his nerve with him to tackle it with a light gun. It's clear that the brute put up a fight. I suppose the first three shots I heard was when the hunter flushed his quarry and wounded it. The last shot was when he trailed it here and finished it." He examined the ground closely and found what he had hoped to find--the print of hunting boots. They pointed along the cliff in the direction he had been going. Eagerly he hurried along, now slipping on a rotten log or a loose stone, but making headway; night was beginning to settle down on the island. Bleak darkness was blacking out the sea and jungle when Rainsford sighted the lights. He came upon them as he turned a crook in the coast line; and his first thought was that be had come upon a village, for there were many lights. But as he forged along he saw to his great astonishment that all the lights were in one enormous building--a lofty structure with pointed towers plunging upward into the gloom. His eyes made out the shadowy outlines of a palatial chateau; it was set on a high bluff, and on three sides of it cliffs dived down to where the sea licked greedy lips in the shadows. "Mirage," thought Rainsford. But it was no mirage, he found, when he opened the tall spiked iron gate. The stone steps were real enough; the massive door with a leering gargoyle for a knocker was real enough; yet above it all hung an air of unreality. He lifted the knocker, and it creaked up stiffly, as if it had never before been used. He let it fall, and it startled him with its booming loudness. He thought he heard steps within; the door remained closed. Again Rainsford lifted the heavy knocker, and let it fall. The door opened then--opened as suddenly as if it were on a spring--and Rainsford stood blinking in the river of glaring gold light that poured out. The first thing Rainsford's eyes discerned was the largest man Rainsford had ever seen--a gigantic creature, solidly made and black bearded to the waist. In his hand the man held a long-barreled revolver, and he was pointing it straight at Rainsford's heart. Out of the snarl of beard two small eyes regarded Rainsford. "Don't be alarmed," said Rainsford, with a smile which he hoped was disarming. "I'm no robber. I fell off a yacht. My name is Sanger Rainsford of New York City." The menacing look in the eyes did not change. The revolver pointing as rigidly as if the giant were a statue. He gave no sign that he understood Rainsford's words, or that he had even heard them. He was dressed in uniform--a black uniform trimmed with gray astrakhan. "I'm Sanger Rainsford of New York," Rainsford began again. "I fell off a yacht. I am hungry." The man's only answer was to raise with his thumb the hammer of his revolver. Then Rainsford saw the man's free hand go to his forehead in a military salute, and he saw him click his heels together and stand at attention. Another man was coming down the broad marble steps, an erect, slender man in evening clothes. He advanced to Rainsford and held out his hand. In a cultivated voice marked by a slight accent that gave it added precision and deliberateness, he said, "It is a very great pleasure and honor to welcome Mr. Sanger Rainsford, the celebrated hunter, to my home." Automatically Rainsford shook the man's hand. "I've read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet, you see," explained the man. "I am General Zaroff." Rainsford's first impression was that the man was singularly handsome; his second was that there was an original, almost bizarre quality about the general's face. He was a tall man past middle age, for his hair was a vivid white; but his thick eyebrows and pointed military mustache were as black as the night from which Rainsford had come. His eyes, too, were black and very bright. He had high cheekbones, a sharpcut nose, a spare, dark face--the face of a man used to giving orders, the face of an aristocrat. Turning to the giant in uniform, the general made a sign. The giant put away his pistol, saluted, withdrew. "Ivan is an incredibly strong fellow," remarked the general, "but he has the misfortune to be deaf and dumb. A simple fellow, but, I'm afraid, like all his race, a bit of a savage." "Is he Russian?" "He is a Cossack," said the general, and his smile showed red lips and pointed teeth. "So am I." "Come," he said, "we shouldn't be chatting here. We can talk later. Now you want clothes, food, rest. You shall have them. This is a most-restful spot." Ivan had reappeared, and the general spoke to him with lips that moved but gave forth no sound. "Follow Ivan, if you please, Mr. Rainsford," said the general. "I was about to have my dinner when you came. I'll wait for you. You'll find that my clothes will fit you, I think." It was to a huge, beam-ceilinged bedroom with a canopied bed big enough for six men that Rainsford followed the silent giant. Ivan laid out an evening suit, and Rainsford, as he put it on, noticed that it came from a London tailor who ordinarily cut and sewed for none below the rank of duke. The dining room to which Ivan conducted him was in many ways remarkable. There was a medieval magnificence about it; it suggested a baronial hall of feudal times with its oaken panels, its high ceiling, its vast refectory tables where twoscore men could sit down to eat. About the hall were mounted heads of many animals--lions, tigers, elephants, moose, bears; larger or more perfect specimens Rainsford had never seen. At the great table the general was sitting, alone. "You'll have a cocktail, Mr. Rainsford," he suggested. The cocktail was surpassingly good; and, Rainsford noted, the table apointments were of the finest--the linen, the crystal, the silver, the china. They were eating borsch, the rich, red soup with whipped cream so dear to Russian palates. Half apologetically General Zaroff said, "We do our best to preserve the amenities of civilization here. Please forgive any lapses. We are well off the beaten track, you know. Do you think the champagne has suffered from its long ocean trip?" "Not in the least," declared Rainsford. He was finding the general a most thoughtful and affable host, a true cosmopolite. But there was one small trait of .the general's that made Rainsford uncomfortable. Whenever he looked up from his plate he found the general studying him, appraising him narrowly. "Perhaps," said General Zaroff, "you were surprised that I recognized your name. You see, I read all books on hunting published in English, French, and Russian. I have but one passion in my life, Mr. Rainsford, and it is the hunt." "You have some wonderful heads here," said Rainsford as he ate a particularly well-cooked filet mignon. " That Cape buffalo is the largest I ever saw." "Oh, that fellow. Yes, he was a monster." "Did he charge you?" "Hurled me against a tree," said the general. "Fractured my skull. But I got the brute." "I've always thought," said Rainsford, "that the Cape buffalo is the most dangerous of all big game." For a moment the general did not reply; he was smiling his curious red-lipped smile. Then he said slowly, "No. You are wrong, sir. The Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous big game." He sipped his wine. "Here in my preserve on this island," he said in the same slow tone, "I hunt more dangerous game." Rainsford expressed his surprise. "Is there big game on this island?" The general nodded. "The biggest." "Really?" "Oh, it isn't here naturally, of course. I have to stock the island." "What have you imported, general?" Rainsford asked. "Tigers?" The general smiled. "No," he said. "Hunting tigers ceased to interest me some years ago. I exhausted their possibilities, you see. No thrill left in tigers, no real danger. I live for danger, Mr. Rainsford." The general took from his pocket a gold cigarette case and offered his guest a long black cigarette with a silver tip; it was perfumed and gave off a smell like incense. "We will have some capital hunting, you and I," said the general. "I shall be most glad to have your society." "But what game--" began Rainsford. "I'll tell you," said the general. "You will be amused, I know. I think I may say, in all modesty, that I have done a rare thing. I have invented a new sensation. May I pour you another glass of port?" "Thank you, general." The general filled both glasses, and said, "God makes some men poets. Some He makes kings, some beggars. Me He made a hunter. My hand was made for the trigger, my father said. He was a very rich man with a quarter of a million acres in the Crimea, and he was an ardent sportsman. When I was only five years old he gave me a little gun, specially made in Moscow for me, to shoot sparrows with. When I shot some of his prize turkeys with it, he did not punish me; he complimented me on my marksmanship. I killed my first bear in the Caucasus when I was ten. My whole life has been one prolonged hunt. I went into the army--it was expected of noblemen's sons--and for a time commanded a division of Cossack cavalry, but my real interest was always the hunt. I have hunted every kind of game in every land. It would be impossible for me to tell you how many animals I have killed." The general puffed at his cigarette. "After the debacle in Russia I left the country, for it was imprudent for an officer of the Czar to stay there. Many noble Russians lost everything. I, luckily, had invested heavily in American securities, so I shall never have to open a tearoom in Monte Carlo or drive a taxi in Paris. Naturally, I continued to hunt--grizzliest in your Rockies, crocodiles in the Ganges, rhinoceroses in East Africa. It was in Africa that the Cape buffalo hit me and laid me up for six months. As soon as I recovered I started for the Amazon to hunt jaguars, for I had heard they were unusually cunning. They weren't." The Cossack sighed. "They were no match at all for a hunter with his wits about him, and a high-powered rifle. I was bitterly disappointed. I was lying in my tent with a splitting headache one night when a terrible thought pushed its way into my mind. Hunting was beginning to bore me! And hunting, remember, had been my life. I have heard that in America businessmen often go to pieces when they give up the business that has been their life." "Yes, that's so," said Rainsford. The general smiled. "I had no wish to go to pieces," he said. "I must do something. Now, mine is an analytical mind, Mr. Rainsford. Doubtless that is why I enjoy the problems of the chase." "No doubt, General Zaroff." "So," continued the general, "I asked myself why the hunt no longer fascinated me. You are much younger than I am, Mr. Rainsford, and have not hunted as much, but you perhaps can guess the answer." "What was it?" "Simply this: hunting had ceased to be what you call `a sporting proposition.' It had become too easy. I always got my quarry. Always. There is no greater bore than perfection." The general lit a fresh cigarette. "No animal had a chance with me any more. That is no boast; it is a mathematical certainty. The animal had nothing but his legs and his instinct. Instinct is no match for reason. When I thought of this it was a tragic moment for me, I can tell you." Rainsford leaned across the table, absorbed in what his host was saying. "It came to me as an inspiration what I must do," the general went on. "And that was?" The general smiled the quiet smile of one who has faced an obstacle and surmounted it with success. "I had to invent a new animal to hunt," he said. "A new animal? You're joking." "Not at all," said the general. "I never joke about hunting. I needed a new animal. I found one. So I bought this island built this house, and here I do my hunting. The island is perfect for my purposes--there are jungles with a maze of traits in them, hills, swamps--" "But the animal, General Zaroff?" "Oh," said the general, "it supplies me with the most exciting hunting in the world. No other hunting compares with it for an instant. Every day I hunt, and I never grow bored now, for I have a quarry with which I can match my wits." Rainsford's bewilderment showed in his face. "I wanted the ideal animal to hunt," explained the general. "So I said, `What are the attributes of an ideal quarry?' And the answer was, of course, `It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason."' "But no animal can reason," objected Rainsford. "My dear fellow," said the general, "there is one that can." "But you can't mean--" gasped Rainsford. "And why not?" "I can't believe you are serious, General Zaroff. This is a grisly joke." "Why should I not be serious? I am speaking of hunting." "Hunting? Great Guns, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder." The general laughed with entire good nature. He regarded Rainsford quizzically. "I refuse to believe that so modern and civilized a young man as you seem to be harbors romantic ideas about the value of human life. Surely your experiences in the war--" "Did not make me condone cold-blooded murder," finished Rainsford stiffly. Laughter shook the general. "How extraordinarily droll you are!" he said. "One does not expect nowadays to find a young man of the educated class, even in America, with such a naive, and, if I may say so, mid-Victorian point of view. It's like finding a snuffbox in a limousine. Ah, well, doubtless you had Puritan ancestors. So many Americans appear to have had. I'll wager you'll forget your notions when you go hunting with me. You've a genuine new thrill in store for you, Mr. Rainsford." "Thank you, I'm a hunter, not a murderer." "Dear me," said the general, quite unruffled, "again that unpleasant word. But I think I can show you that your scruples are quite ill founded." "Yes?" "Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and, if needs be, taken by the strong. The weak of the world were put here to give the strong pleasure. I am strong. Why should I not use my gift? If I wish to hunt, why should I not? I hunt the scum of the earth: sailors from tramp ships--lassars, blacks, Chinese, whites, mongrels--a thoroughbred horse or hound is worth more than a score of them." "But they are men," said Rainsford hotly. "Precisely," said the general. "That is why I use them. It gives me pleasure. They can reason, after a fashion. So they are dangerous." "But where do you get them?" The general's left eyelid fluttered down in a wink. "This island is called Ship Trap," he answered. "Sometimes an angry god of the high seas sends them to me. Sometimes, when Providence is not so kind, I help Providence a bit. Come to the window with me." Rainsford went to the window and looked out toward the sea. "Watch! Out there!" exclaimed the general, pointing into the night. Rainsford's eyes saw only blackness, and then, as the general pressed a button, far out to sea Rainsford saw the flash of lights. The general chuckled. "They indicate a channel," he said, "where there's none; giant rocks with razor edges crouch like a sea monster with wide-open jaws. They can crush a ship as easily as I crush this nut." He dropped a walnut on the hardwood floor and brought his heel grinding down on it. "Oh, yes," he said, casually, as if in answer to a question, "I have electricity. We try to be civilized here." "Civilized? And you shoot down men?" A trace of anger was in the general's black eyes, but it was there for but a second; and he said, in his most pleasant manner, "Dear me, what a righteous young man you are! I assure you I do not do the thing you suggest. That would be barbarous. I treat these visitors with every consideration. They get plenty of good food and exercise. They get into splendid physical condition. You shall see for yourself tomorrow." "What do you mean?" "We'll visit my training school," smiled the general. "It's in the cellar. I have about a dozen pupils down there now. They're from the Spanish bark San Lucar that had the bad luck to go on the rocks out there. A very inferior lot, I regret to say. Poor specimens and more accustomed to the deck than to the jungle." He raised his hand, and Ivan, who served as waiter, brought thick Turkish coffee. Rainsford, with an effort, held his tongue in check. "It's a game, you see," pursued the general blandly. "I suggest to one of them that we go hunting. I give him a supply of food and an excellent hunting knife. I give him three hours' start. I am to follow, armed only with a pistol of the smallest caliber and range. If my quarry eludes me for three whole days, he wins the game. If I find him "--the general smiled--" he loses." "Suppose he refuses to be hunted?" "Oh," said the general, "I give him his option, of course. He need not play that game if he doesn't wish to. If he does not wish to hunt, I turn him over to Ivan. Ivan once had the honor of serving as official knouter to the Great White Czar, and he has his own ideas of sport. Invariably, Mr. Rainsford, invariably they choose the hunt." "And if they win?" The smile on the general's face widened. "To date I have not lost," he said. Then he added, hastily: "I don't wish you to think me a braggart, Mr. Rainsford. Many of them afford only the most elementary sort of problem. Occasionally I strike a tartar. One almost did win. I eventually had to use the dogs." "The dogs?" "This way, please. I'll show you." The general steered Rainsford to a window. The lights from the windows sent a flickering illumination that made grotesque patterns on the courtyard below, and Rainsford could see moving about there a dozen or so huge black shapes; as they turned toward him, their eyes glittered greenly. "A rather good lot, I think," observed the general. "They are let out at seven every night. If anyone should try to get into my house--or out of it--something extremely regrettable would occur to him." He hummed a snatch of song from the Folies Bergere. "And now," said the general, "I want to show you my new collection of heads. Will you come with me to the library?" "I hope," said Rainsford, "that you will excuse me tonight, General Zaroff. I'm really not feeling well." "Ah, indeed?" the general inquired solicitously. "Well, I suppose that's only natural, after your long swim. You need a good, restful night's sleep. Tomorrow you'll feel like a new man, I'll wager. Then we'll hunt, eh? I've one rather promising prospect--" Rainsford was hurrying from the room. "Sorry you can't go with me tonight," called the general. "I expect rather fair sport--a big, strong, black. He looks resourceful--Well, good night, Mr. Rainsford; I hope you have a good night's rest." The bed was good, and the pajamas of the softest silk, and he was tired in every fiber of his being, but nevertheless Rainsford could not quiet his brain with the opiate of sleep. He lay, eyes wide open. Once he thought he heard stealthy steps in the corridor outside his room. He sought to throw open the door; it would not open. He went to the window and looked out. His room was high up in one of the towers. The lights of the chateau were out now, and it was dark and silent; but there was a fragment of sallow moon, and by its wan light he could see, dimly, the courtyard. There, weaving in and out in the pattern of shadow, were black, noiseless forms; the hounds heard him at the window and looked up, expectantly, with their green eyes. Rainsford went back to the bed and lay down. By many methods he tried to put himself to sleep. He had achieved a doze when, just as morning began to come, he heard, far off in the jungle, the faint report of a pistol. General Zaroff did not appear until luncheon. He was dressed faultlessly in the tweeds of a country squire. He was solicitous about the state of Rainsford's health. "As for me," sighed the general, "I do not feel so well. I am worried, Mr. Rainsford. Last night I detected traces of my old complaint." To Rainsford's questioning glance the general said, "Ennui. Boredom." Then, taking a second helping of crêpes Suzette, the general explained: "The hunting was not good last night. The fellow lost his head. He made a straight trail that offered no problems at all. That's the trouble with these sailors; they have dull brains to begin with, and they do not know how to get about in the woods. They do excessively stupid and obvious things. It's most annoying. Will you have another glass of Chablis, Mr. Rainsford?" "General," said Rainsford firmly, "I wish to leave this island at once." The general raised his thickets of eyebrows; he seemed hurt. "But, my dear fellow," the general protested, "you've only just come. You've had no hunting--" "I wish to go today," said Rainsford. He saw the dead black eyes of the general on him, studying him. General Zaroff's face suddenly brightened. He filled Rainsford's glass with venerable Chablis from a dusty bottle. "Tonight," said the general, "we will hunt--you and I." Rainsford shook his head. "No, general," he said. "I will not hunt." The general shrugged his shoulders and delicately ate a hothouse grape. "As you wish, my friend," he said. "The choice rests entirely with you. But may I not venture to suggest that you will find my idea of sport more diverting than Ivan's?" He nodded toward the corner to where the giant stood, scowling, his thick arms crossed on his hogshead of chest. "You don't mean--" cried Rainsford. "My dear fellow," said the general, "have I not told you I always mean what I say about hunting? This is really an inspiration. I drink to a foeman worthy of my steel--at last." The general raised his glass, but Rainsford sat staring at him. "You'll find this game worth playing," the general said enthusiastically." Your brain against mine. Your woodcraft against mine. Your strength and stamina against mine. Outdoor chess! And the stake is not without value, eh?" "And if I win--" began Rainsford huskily. "I'll cheerfully acknowledge myself defeat if I do not find you by midnight of the third day," said General Zaroff. "My sloop will place you on the mainland near a town." The general read what Rainsford was thinking. "Oh, you can trust me," said the Cossack. "I will give you my word as a gentleman and a sportsman. Of course you, in turn, must agree to say nothing of your visit here." "I'll agree to nothing of the kind," said Rainsford. "Oh," said the general, "in that case--But why discuss that now? Three days hence we can discuss it over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, unless--" The general sipped his wine. Then a businesslike air animated him. "Ivan," he said to Rainsford, "will supply you with hunting clothes, food, a knife. I suggest you wear moccasins; they leave a poorer trail. I suggest, too, that you avoid the big swamp in the southeast corner of the island. We call it Death Swamp. There's quicksand there. One foolish fellow tried it. The deplorable part of it was that Lazarus followed him. You can imagine my feelings, Mr. Rainsford. I loved Lazarus; he was the finest hound in my pack. Well, I must beg you to excuse me now. I always' take a siesta after lunch. You'll hardly have time for a nap, I fear. You'll want to start, no doubt. I shall not follow till dusk. Hunting at night is so much more exciting than by day, don't you think? Au revoir, Mr. Rainsford, au revoir." General Zaroff, with a deep, courtly bow, strolled from the room. From another door came Ivan. Under one arm he carried khaki hunting clothes, a haversack of food, a leather sheath containing a long-bladed hunting knife; his right hand rested on a cocked revolver thrust in the crimson sash about his waist. Rainsford had fought his way through the bush for two hours. "I must keep my nerve. I must keep my nerve," he said through tight teeth. He had not been entirely clearheaded when the chateau gates snapped shut behind him. His whole idea at first was to put distance between himself and General Zaroff; and, to this end, he had plunged along, spurred on by the sharp rowers of something very like panic. Now he had got a grip on himself, had stopped, and was taking stock of himself and the situation. He saw that straight flight was futile; inevitably it would bring him face to face with the sea. He was in a picture with a frame of water, and his operations, clearly, must take place within that frame. "I'll give him a trail to follow," muttered Rainsford, and he struck off from the rude path he had been following into the trackless wilderness. He executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled on his trail again and again, recalling all the lore of the fox hunt, and all the dodges of the fox. Night found him leg-weary, with hands and face lashed by the branches, on a thickly wooded ridge. He knew it would be insane to blunder on through the dark, even if he had the strength. His need for rest was imperative and he thought, "I have played the fox, now I must play the cat of the fable." A big tree with a thick trunk and outspread branches was near by, and, taking care to leave not the slightest mark, he climbed up into the crotch, and, stretching out on one of the broad limbs, after a fashion, rested. Rest brought him new confidence and almost a feeling of security. Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff could not trace him there, he told himself; only the devil himself could follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But perhaps the general was a devil-- An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake and sleep did not visit Rainsford, although the silence of a dead world was on the jungle. Toward morning when a dingy gray was varnishing the sky, the cry of some startled bird focused Rainsford's attention in that direction. Something was coming through the bush, coming slowly, carefully, coming by the same winding way Rainsford had come. He flattened himself down on the limb and, through a screen of leaves almost as thick as tapestry, he watched. . . . That which was approaching was a man. It was General Zaroff. He made his way along with his eyes fixed in utmost concentration on the ground before him. He paused, almost beneath the tree, dropped to his knees and studied the ground. Rainsford's impulse was to hurl himself down like a panther, but he saw that the general's right hand held something metallic--a small automatic pistol. The hunter shook his head several times, as if he were puzzled. Then he straightened up and took from his case one of his black cigarettes; its pungent incenselike smoke floated up to Rainsford's nostrils. Rainsford held his breath. The general's eyes had left the ground and were traveling inch by inch up the tree. Rainsford froze there, every muscle tensed for a spring. But the sharp eyes of the hunter stopped before they reached the limb where Rainsford lay; a smile spread over his brown face. Very deliberately he blew a smoke ring into the air; then he turned his back on the tree and walked carelessly away, back along the trail he had come. The swish of the underbrush against his hunting boots grew fainter and fainter. The pent-up air burst hotly from Rainsford's lungs. His first thought made him feel sick and numb. The general could follow a trail through the woods at night; he could follow an extremely difficult trail; he must have uncanny powers; only by the merest chance had the Cossack failed to see his quarry. Rainsford's second thought was even more terrible. It sent a shudder of cold horror through his whole being. Why had the general smiled? Why had he turned back? Rainsford did not want to believe what his reason told him was true, but the truth was as evident as the sun that had by now pushed through the morning mists. The general was playing with him! The general was saving him for another day's sport! The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse. Then it was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of terror. "I will not lose my nerve. I will not." He slid down from the tree, and struck off again into the woods. His face was set and he forced the machinery of his mind to function. Three hundred yards from his hiding place he stopped where a huge dead tree leaned precariously on a smaller, living one. Throwing off his sack of food, Rainsford took his knife from its sheath and began to work with all his energy. The job was finished at last, and he threw himself down behind a fallen log a hundred feet away. He did not have to wait long. The cat was coming again to play with the mouse. Following the trail with the sureness of a bloodhound came General Zaroff. Nothing escaped those searching black eyes, no crushed blade of grass, no bent twig, no mark, no matter how faint, in the moss. So intent was the Cossack on his stalking that he was upon the thing Rainsford had made before he saw it. His foot touched the protruding bough that was the trigger. Even as he touched it, the general sensed his danger and leaped back with the agility of an ape. But he was not quite quick enough; the dead tree, delicately adjusted to rest on the cut living one, crashed down and struck the general a glancing blow on the shoulder as it fell; but for his alertness, he must have been smashed beneath it. He staggered, but he did not fall; nor did he drop his revolver. He stood there, rubbing his injured shoulder, and Rainsford, with fear again gripping his heart, heard the general's mocking laugh ring through the jungle. "Rainsford," called the general, "if you are within sound of my voice, as I suppose you are, let me congratulate you. Not many men know how to make a Malay mancatcher. Luckily for me I, too, have hunted in Malacca. You are proving interesting, Mr. Rainsford. I am going now to have my wound dressed; it's only a slight one. But I shall be back. I shall be back." When the general, nursing his bruised shoulder, had gone, Rainsford took up his flight again. It was flight now, a desperate, hopeless flight, that carried him on for some hours. Dusk came, then darkness, and still he pressed on. The ground grew softer under his moccasins; the vegetation grew ranker, denser; insects bit him savagely. Then, as he stepped forward, his foot sank into the ooze. He tried to wrench it back, but the muck sucked viciously at his foot as if it were a giant leech. With a violent effort, he tore his feet loose. He knew where he was now. Death Swamp and its quicksand. His hands were tight closed as if his nerve were something tangible that someone in the darkness was trying to tear from his grip. The softness of the earth had given him an idea. He stepped back from the quicksand a dozen feet or so and, like some huge prehistoric beaver, he began to dig. Rainsford had dug himself in in France when a second's delay meant death. That had been a placid pastime compared to his digging now. The pit grew deeper; when it was above his shoulders, he climbed out and from some hard saplings cut stakes and sharpened them to a fine point. These stakes he planted in the bottom of the pit with the points sticking up. With flying fingers he wove a rough carpet of weeds and branches and with it he covered the mouth of the pit. Then, wet with sweat and aching with tiredness, he crouched behind the stump of a lightning-charred tree. He knew his pursuer was coming; he heard the padding sound of feet on the soft earth, and the night breeze brought him the perfume of the general's cigarette. It seemed to Rainsford that the general was coming with unusual swiftness; he was not feeling his way along, foot by foot. Rainsford, crouching there, could not see the general, nor could he see the pit. He lived a year in a minute. Then he felt an impulse to cry aloud with joy, for he heard the sharp crackle of the breaking branches as the cover of the pit gave way; he heard the sharp scream of pain as the pointed stakes found their mark. He leaped up from his place of concealment. Then he cowered back. Three feet from the pit a man was standing, with an electric torch in his hand. "You've done well, Rainsford," the voice of the general called. "Your Burmese tiger pit has claimed one of my best dogs. Again you score. I think, Mr. Rainsford, Ill see what you can do against my whole pack. I'm going home for a rest now. Thank you for a most amusing evening." At daybreak Rainsford, lying near the swamp, was awakened by a sound that made him know that he had new things to learn about fear. It was a distant sound, faint and wavering, but he knew it. It was the baying of a pack of hounds. Rainsford knew he could do one of two things. He could stay where he was and wait. That was suicide. He could flee. That was postponing the inevitable. For a moment he stood there, thinking. An idea that held a wild chance came to him, and, tightening his belt, he headed away from the swamp. The baying of the hounds drew nearer, then still nearer, nearer, ever nearer. On a ridge Rainsford climbed a tree. Down a watercourse, not a quarter of a mile away, he could see the bush moving. Straining his eyes, he saw the lean figure of General Zaroff; just ahead of him Rainsford made out another figure whose wide shoulders surged through the tall jungle weeds; it was the giant Ivan, and he seemed pulled forward by some unseen force; Rainsford knew that Ivan must be holding the pack in leash. They would be on him any minute now. His mind worked frantically. He thought of a native trick he had learned in Uganda. He slid down the tree. He caught hold of a springy young sapling and to it he fastened his hunting knife, with the blade pointing down the trail; with a bit of wild grapevine he tied back the sapling. Then he ran for his life. The hounds raised their voices as they hit the fresh scent. Rainsford knew now how an animal at bay feels. He had to stop to get his breath. The baying of the hounds stopped abruptly, and Rainsford's heart stopped too. They must have reached the knife. He shinned excitedly up a tree and looked back. His pursuers had stopped. But the hope that was in Rainsford's brain when he climbed died, for he saw in the shallow valley that General Zaroff was still on his feet. But Ivan was not. The knife, driven by the recoil of the springing tree, had not wholly failed. Rainsford had hardly tumbled to the ground when the pack took up the cry again. "Nerve, nerve, nerve!" he panted, as he dashed along. A blue gap showed between the trees dead ahead. Ever nearer drew the hounds. Rainsford forced himself on toward that gap. He reached it. It was the shore of the sea. Across a cove he could see the gloomy gray stone of the chateau. Twenty feet below him the sea rumbled and hissed. Rainsford hesitated. He heard the hounds. Then he leaped far out into the sea. . . . When the general and his pack reached the place by the sea, the Cossack stopped. For some minutes he stood regarding the blue-green expanse of water. He shrugged his shoulders. Then be sat down, took a drink of brandy from a silver flask, lit a cigarette, and hummed a bit from Madame Butterfly. General Zaroff had an exceedingly good dinner in his great paneled dining hall that evening. With it he had a bottle of Pol Roger and half a bottle of Chambertin. Two slight annoyances kept him from perfect enjoyment. One was the thought that it would be difficult to replace Ivan; the other was that his quarry had escaped him; of course, the American hadn't played the game--so thought the general as he tasted his after-dinner liqueur. In his library he read, to soothe himself, from the works of Marcus Aurelius. At ten he went up to his bedroom. He was deliciously tired, he said to himself, as he locked himself in. There was a little moonlight, so, before turning on his light, he went to the window and looked down at the courtyard. He could see the great hounds, and he called, "Better luck another time," to them. Then he switched on the light. A man, who had been hiding in the curtains of the bed, was standing there. "Rainsford!" screamed the general. "How in God's name did you get here?" "Swam," said Rainsford. "I found it quicker than walking through the jungle." The general sucked in his breath and smiled. "I congratulate you," he said. "You have won the game." Rainsford did not smile. "I am still a beast at bay," he said, in a low, hoarse voice. "Get ready, General Zaroff." The general made one of his deepest bows. "I see," he said. "Splendid! One of us is to furnish a repast for the hounds. The other will sleep in this very excellent bed. On guard, Rainsford." . . . He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided. Writing About Literature On-Line Guides to Writing about Literature The following are guides to writing about literature from various university writing centers, instructors, and from W.W. Norton.  The Norton is the most comprehensive.  I suggest printing out a couple of the writing center handouts initially, and consulting the Norton site as you get further along in your paper. Reading and Writing about Literature Created by Joi Chevalier, based on work by Robby Sulcer http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~babydoll/coursematerial/spring96/closereading.html D.K. Peterson's Writing About Literature--The Basics Includes Conventions for Writing About Literature and Developing and Supporting a Thesis. http://www.english.wayne.edu/~peterson/Fiction/litbasics.html Writing A Literature Paper from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.english.uiuc.edu/cws/wworkshop/tips/writtechlitpaper.htm Writing About Literature Dr. David Kay, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Includes information on formatting, etc. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/siewers/106/writinglit.htm Writing About Literature:Some Helpful Things to Know Purdue University Online Writing Lab http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_lit.html Writing About Literature Handout from UNC Chapel Hill Writing Center More comprehensive than the ones above, but still relatively brief. http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/literature.html Writing About Literature On-Line Companion to the Norton Introduction to Literature A very comprehensive guide that discusses theory in addition to the basics. http://www.wwnorton.com/introlit/wal.htm Nobel Laureates in LiteratureThe Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to 103 persons since 1901. Introductory Note: The Paradox of Literature R. V. Young Literature is paradoxical both in its nature and in its effect upon readers. Although letters inscribed upon a page or the words of a spoken utterance are the media of a literary work, the work itself is neither the ink and paper nor the oral performance. A successful poem or story compels our attention and seizes us with a sense of its reality, even while we know that it is essentially (even when based upon historical fact) something made up?a ?ction. The most memorable works of literature are charged with signi?cance and cry out for understanding, re?ection, interpretation; but this meaning carries most conviction insofar as it is not explicit?not paraded with banners ?ying and trumpets blaring. ?We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us,? says John Keats.1 The role of literature in society is similarly equivocal. It can be explained simply as entertainment or recreation; men and women have always told stories and sung songs to amuse themselves, to pass the time, to lighten the burdens of ?real life.? At the same time, literature has assumed a central place in education and the transmission of culture throughout the history of Western civilization, contributing a sense of communal identity and shaping both individual and social understanding of human experience. The intimate part played by literature in cultural tradition has been a source of alarm to moralists and reformers from Plato to the media critics and multiculturalists of our own day. Literature, then, must be approached both with caution and abandon. A primary purpose of the study of literature is to learn to read critically, to maintain reserve and distance in the face of an engaging, even beguiling, object. And yet, like any work of art?a symphony, for example, or a painting?a novel or an epic yields up its secrets only to a reader who yields himself to its power. It is for this reason that literary study is a humane or humanistic discipline, not an exact or empirical science. The ideal researcher in the physical sciences, insofar as he sticks rigorously to science, will be absolutely objective in the sense that his humanity will exert no in?uence on his methods or conclusions. Even a medical researcher will be interested in the human body only as a biological mechanism, not as the outward manifestation of a person with a soul. The literary scholar must of course be objective in the sense that he is disinterested; he must not have an individual or personal stake in the interpretation. And yet, although the critic?s fate is not the fate of King Lear, the critic?s human sympathy with the plight of that tragic protagonist is part of his critical response to the play as literature. The human compassion of the cancer researcher for the victims of the disease, while it may be an important motive, is not part of his research, not an element in his science as such. The natural sciences, therefore, provide a very poor model for scholarship in the humanities. To be sure, there are factual, ?scienti?c? elements of great importance to inquiry in all the arts: a knowledge of Elizabethan stagecraft and printshop practices can furnish a good deal of useful information about how Hamlet was seen by contemporaries and how the text was preserved, but such facts will never explain why the play is still moving and important. Works of literature are not natural phenomena or specimens; they are rather part of the cultural fabric of the world that we all inhabit. A poet, says William Wordsworth, ?is a man speaking to men.?2 We cannot approach poets and poems as an entomologist approaches ants and ant hills. Literature is vast and complex; a ?guide? of this length can only be a modest sketch of the subject. My purpose is to provide a brief description of the nature and purpose of literature and some sense of how it may be best approached. I shall say something about the concept of literary kinds or genres, and something about how literature has developed along with the development of Western civilization. I shall not discuss the literature of other civilizations, principally because I lack the competence, but also because I suspect that literature in the sense that I use the term, although no longer unique to the West, is a uniquely Western idea. Finally, I shall list some of the indispensable works of our tradition, of which every educated person should have some knowledge, as well as lesser works that are also very ?ne or very in?uential and well worth perusal. The list will not be comprehensive: this essay is intended not only for undergraduate literature majors, but for students of any age who wish to have a knowledge of literature commensurate with a baccalaureate degree. Nothing that I can say will take the place of simply reading these works, but I hope that this Guide will enable students to plan their own literary education, or ?ll in the gaps of such awareness as they possess, with con?dence and prudence. A Student?s Guide to Literature The first problem one encounters in attempting to de?ne the nature and purpose of literature is the ambiguity of the key terms. The word ?literature? itself comprises a wide variety of sometimes incompatible meanings. Its etymological origin, the Latin word littera, means, like the English word ?letter,? both a graphic mark representing a sound or a missive or written communication. Litteratura in Latin, like ?literature? in English and the corresponding cognate words in the various European vernacular tongues, had as its most important sense those writings which constitute the elements of liberal learning. Hence a litteratus was a man notable for knowledge and cultivation. This notion is the basis for the English phrase ?a man of letters.? ?Literature? as a term for written works of art?what Wellek and Warren call ?the literary work of art?3 ?is, however, a nineteenth-century development. The older generic term was ?poetry,? but today this word is applied almost exclusively to works written in verse rather than prose; that is, poetry deploys language measured off in metrical ?feet,? or at least divided into free verse lines. Hence, for much of this century, English departments have offered introductory courses and patronized introductory anthologies to ?Literature,? divided into units on ?Poetry,? ?Fiction,? and ?Drama.? Although it was generally rejected as a substantial distinction by ancient and Renaissance criticism, the force of the prose/verse distinction has strengthened over the past two to three centuries because of the rise of prose ?ction, which has taken over the business of telling stories and con?ned verse almost exclusively to lyrical and satirical modes. Narrative verse is rarely written now, and contemporary verse drama tends to have an air of arti?ciality. So far as I know, no one has written scienti?c exposition in verse since Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of the more famous Charles) published The Botanic Garden in heroic couplets late in the eighteenth century. Hence it makes sense in the twentieth century to regard short to moderate length lyrical, re?ective, or satirical poetry as a particular kind of literature as distinguished from ?ction and drama, which tell stories through narration and theatrical representation.4 My own practice will be to alternate the terms ?poetry? and ?literature?; the latter is the more common usage today, while the former will serve as a reminder that it is imaginative literature that is under discussion. The account of literature given here will rest upon the ancient assumption of Plato and Aristotle that the essence of literature, or poetry, is mimesis; that is, the imitation or representation of reality or the human experience of reality. Whether this fundamental element of literature is cause for the disapproval of Socrates in Plato?s Republic or for Aristotle?s approval in the Poetics, the mimetic function of literature is generally taken for granted by classical thinkers. This basic fact is difficult to demonstrate precisely because it is the self-evident intuition of all mankind: when a friend has just read a new novel or seen a new movie, our ?rst question is, ?What is it about?? We expect, above all, a description of the characters as they act and relate to one another. We wish to know what this particular work shows us about how life is lived. As a representation of reality, a work of literature is an object made by an author. Our word ?poet? comes from the Greek verb poieo, ?to make.? Our word ??ction? is similarly derived from the Latin ?ngo, ?to fashion,? ?to feign,? or ?to form.? All of these terms suggest that at the center of literature or poetry is a verbal creation, made or formed to imitate or feign some aspect of the human experience of life. To a remarkable extent, the categories devised by Aristotle in the Poetics to analyze tragedy are applicable, mutatis mutandis, to all the genres of literature. The plot (mythos) or story or arrangement of incidents is the primary element, because, he maintains, while character makes men what they are, it is action that determines happiness and unhappiness. The second, closely related element is characterization (ethos), which determines how individuals will act. Diction (lexis) or language or, best, style is the next element; it is closely related to thought (dianoia) or themes or ideas that emerge in the discourse. The ?nal two elements, spectacle (opsis) and music (melopoiia) or song are, in the strict sense, speci?c features of ancient Greek tragedy, but even here we can ?nd parallels in other genres. The ?special effects? and the ?sound track? are obvious corollaries from modern ?lms, but even purely literary genres can provide similarites: the careful evocation of the setting of Thomas Hardy?s Wessex novels is indispensable to their effect and import, and ?music? emerges both in the style and structure of Henry James?s prose ?ction and Tennyson?s verse. Because careful attention to these comparatively minor elements?precise, vivid diction, evocative representation of scenes, and compelling speech rhythms?is the key to literary impact, works of non?ction that are distinguished for beautiful or lively style are often counted as literature and thus survive after their more pragmatic original function has ceased to interest. Lucretius?s De rerum natura would be at most a footnote in the history of philosophy if it were merely an exposition of Epicureanism; however, its powerful imagery and the spell cast by the melody of its hexameter verse have assured its enduring signi?cance as a poem. Similarly, many of Emerson?s essays furnish a compelling, literary experience of the life of the mind even for readers who regard him as singularly defective as a moralist, and one need not be a high-church Anglican to be enthralled by the prose of Donne?s sermons. There are also works that seem to be on the border of literature and some other discipline from the outset. Plato?s dialogues are the indispensable foundation of Western philosophy, but some of the dialogues?the Symposium, for instance, and the Phaedrus? seem to work as effectively as dramatic literature. The interpretation of Saint Thomas More?s Utopia hinges, to a large extent, on whether it is treated as a treatise in political philosophy or a work of literature. This does not mean that the distinction between ?ction and non?ction, between a poem and a treatise, is negligible; it simply means that there is a broad grey area at the border. We know the difference between day and night, but a long period of dusk makes it difficult to say when one ends and the other begins. At the center of imaginative literature or poetry, then, is mimesis or imitation: the representation of human life?or more precisely, the representation of human experience. We are naturally curious creatures, but not merely in the manner of cats and monkeys; our speci?cally human curiosity is inspired by our consciousness?our awareness of the world around us and of our selves as situated within it. This selfconsciousness necessarily entails a recognition of other selves, other souls. The poet is important because, by expressing himself, he opens up to us the mind and heart of another, and the knowledge of our likeness and difference from others is essential for our self-realization. The individual can only be de?ned?indeed, can only exist?in relation to other individuals. Thus while literature is the self-expression of the author, it is also the representation of the reader. A uniquely personal vision representing nothing save the bard?s own genius would fail to be intelligible as literature; by the same token, a purely subjective reading, which ignores the structural and generic features of a work, which pays no heed to the intention inscribed in its intrinsic verbal substance, would fail to be an interpretation of the work itself. Literature?like the language from which it emerges?presupposes a communal culture, which in turn rests upon a common human nature. The knowledge of human nature and the human condition that literature yields is the basis of its educational role. A poet or a novelist contributes to the moral and social formation of his readers less by providing moral precepts or lessons in citizenship than by shaping the moral imagination. Literature, then, is less concerned to assert what is right and wrong than to evoke the experience of good and evil. Shakespeare does not tell us that Edmund, in King Lear, is evil. Instead, he unfolds the layers of his villain?s arrogance and self-pity, of his ambition and envy; and he allows him to make claims upon both our sympathy and fascination. Such is the peril of literature: one may choose to ignore the import of the drama as a whole and accept Edmund?s claim to be a victim. A character on a grander scale of wickedness?the Satan of Milton?s Paradise Lost? is notorious for having attracted the favor of romantically inclined readers from Blake and Shelley to William Empson. But if poetry is more dangerous than precept, it is also more powerful and engaging. The reader or theatrical spectator who has felt the full impact of King Lear has a knowledge more profound and moving than the simple proposition that deceit, betrayal, and murder are never justi?ed; he will gain an emotional and imaginative revulsion at evil dressed up in bland excuse and political pretext. He will have an inner resistance to collaboration with the Edmunds he meets in the world, or to complicity with the Edmund who lurks within each of us. ?Poets aim either to teach or delight,? is Horace?s famous dictum in The Art of Poetry, and Sir Philip Sidney re?nes the saying by suggesting that teaching and delighting are bound up with one another: ?But it is that fayning notable images of vertues, vices, or what els, with that delightfull teaching, which must be the right describing note to know a Poet by....?5 Neither Horace nor Sidney is altogether free of the ?sugar-coated-pill? theory of literary teaching; but, as the quotation from the latter suggests, their best instincts tell them that the morality in poetry is built into the poetic essence as such: ?[the] fayning notable images of vertues, vices, or what els? is the poetry. As Sidney stresses, the power of literature to teach is bound up with its power to represent the human experience of life, but life as it has meaning for us. ?Right Poets,? he says, are like ?the more excellent? painters, ?who, hauing no law but wit, bestow that in cullours vpon you which is ?ttest for the eye to see: as the constant though lamenting looke of Lucrecia, when she punished in her selfe an others fault; wherein he painteth not Lucrecia whom he neuer sawe, but painteth the outwarde beauty of such a vertue.?6 Literature moves us by uniting goodness and beauty in our imagination; it seeks truth by means of ?ction. In assessing the representational element in literature, it is important always to bear in mind that, excepting drama, it is all done with words. Imaginative literature puts enormous pressure on language, with the salutary result of expanding, enriching, and re?ning the resources of that most characteristic yet remarkable of human traits. It is difficult to conceive of men and women without speech; hence we must think of language less as a human achievement than as a necessary condition of humanity. Speech, however, can develop or degenerate: among numerous other factors, the splendor of Shakespearean drama is in part the result of a tremendous growth in the power and subtlety of the English language in the course of the ?fteenth and sixteenth centuries. But the writing and reading of poetry are a cause of linguistic burgeoning as well as an effect. Poetry is speech at its most intense: it requires all the resources of meaning and expression that a language can provide, but it also contributes to the creation of those resources. It would thus be difficult to determine whether the decline of Latin literature in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages resulted from a loss of complexity and re?nement in the Latin language, or the language deteriorated because the poetry that was being written became cruder and less imaginative. What can be said with certainty is that the study of literature requires the study of language, and that a knowledge of any language ?nally depends upon an acquaintance with the literature in which a language ?nds its most thoughtful and vital articulation. To be able to read critically, re?ectively, and con?dently requires wide reading in the great literature that has formed the linguistic culture of a society; and eloquent writing requires a fortiori a command of the most powerful resources of a language, which are only available, again, in its most important literature. The interrelationships among literatures of different languages, cultures, and ages de?ne the critical relationship between history and literature. Although a poet is inevitably affected by the social and political setting in which he writes, the crucial context of his work is the history of literature itself. Whatever the personal motives or public pressures that act upon a writer, the de?nitive goal of his efforts is, recognizably, a work of literature. Swift never actually admits that A Modest Proposal is a satire and not an actual scheme for using Irish infants as a foodstuff, and he never confesses that Lemuel Gulliver is a made-up character whose Travels were spun out of Swift?s own fertile fantasy. Likewise, Thomas More appears to guarantee the authenticity of Raphael Hythlodaeus?s account of a distant, perfectly ordered state by introducing himself as an uncomfortable auditor into the text of Utopia. Only the most naïve reader, however, would doubt for a moment that these works are ?ctions, created by their authors to respond to and take their place among the poems and stories of other authors. The relationship of literature to actual history?including an author?s own biography?is always important, but always oblique. For this reason, the place of literature in education is unique. It involves a good deal of historical knowledge of persons, places, facts, dates, and the like; but these matters are, ?nally, ancillary to the study of literature per se, which dwells in the realm of the human spirit. Even as a particular poem is a structure of tension between author and reader, between a unique verbal form and the literary and linguistic conventions that constitute its matrix, just so is literature itself (like all creations of the mind) an institution within but not wholly of the ?ux of human history. The history of literature is thus best pursued in terms of the emergence, development, and transformation of genres or literary ?kinds.? The difficulty of this approach is that ?genre,? like ?literature? itself, is an ambiguous term. There is more than one principle for dividing up literary works into categories, and the generally recognized genres that have emerged in the course of literary history are not always logically compatible. Most works draw on a variety of generic conventions, and practically no memorable work ?ts comfortably into the de?nitions offered by scholars?one of the marks of literary greatness is a testing of the conventional boundaries of the recognized genres. The conventions are not, therefore, irrelevant or unimportant. Even in ?realistic? novels, we unconsciously accept impossibly knowledgeable and coherent narrative perspectives because the conventions of prose ?ction are part of our literary culture. And it is those innovative authors who challenge or subvert the conventions who most depend upon them. Any reasonably literate person can work out the conventions of the Victorian novel in the course of reading, but it requires a high degree of critical sophistication?a conscious awareness that the usual means of story-telling have been discarded?to respond to the stream-of-consciousness narration of To the Lighthouse or the lack of a conventional plot in Waiting for Godot. In the course of Western literary history, genres have developed in terms both of formal features and aspects of tone and content, and the same term can be used to specify either a closely defined literary form or a general theme or subject. Pure examples of specific genres are the exception rather than the rule. For example, much of the poetry of Robert Frost may reasonably be described as ?pastoral,? but he did not write formal pastorals on the model of Theocritus?s Idylls or Virgil?s Eclogues or strict Renaissance imitations like Petrarch?s Bucolicum carmen. Indeed, many of the greatest literary achievements grow out of an author?s re-imagining both the generic form and the spiritual vision of his great predecessors: for example, an ?epic? novel?a prose narrative on a grand scale, like Moby-Dick or War and Peace?can be seen as a modernized version of the quest and conflict motifs of ancient epic as founded by Homer and Virgil. Genre, then, is an indispensable literary concept as it applies both to the form of individual works and to the historical unfolding of literary tradition; however, it would be foolish to bind particular poems, plays, and stories to generic models, as if they were so many beds of Procrustes. One way of regarding a work of literature is to see it as a result of a poet coming to terms with the conventions of his art and the limits of nature, while at the same time, in Sidney?s grand phrase, ?freely ranging onely within the Zodiack of his owne wit.?7 Or as T. S. Eliot says, literature represents a confrontation and convergence of ?Tradition and the Individual Talent.?8 At the fountainhead of Western literature is the epic? the story of a hero struggling against the constraints of the human condition. Western literature?and in some measure Western culture and education?begins with the Iliad and the Odyssey, traditionally ascribed to the blind bard Homer, who probably put the poems in roughly their present form about seven centuries before the birth of Christ. Beginning in Athens and the other Greek city-states at least as early as the ?fth century B.C.E., the epics of Homer have spread throughout the Western world and been a continuous in?uence upon culture, education, and literature even to the present day. Of course the same argument could be made about the opening books of the Bible, especially Genesis and Exodus, attributed to Moses. These books go back more than 1200 years before the birth of Christ, and they are certainly epic in their theme and scope and in the grandeur of their style. The account of the Hebrews? escape from slavery in Egypt and their conquest of the Promised Land, for instance, is an undeniably epic tale. The books of the Bible, however, have been preserved not as poetry, but rather as sacred history and revealed truth. Indeed, the survival of classical literature, with its idolatrous and often unedifying mythology, was possible in a severely Christian world largely because the attitude of the ancient Greeks and Romans toward their gods and the stories about them never involved the rigorous claims of truth that Christians and Jews attach to their Scriptures. Although the in?uence of the Bible on Western culture is thus as great as that of Homer and all of Greek and Roman literature combined, it is an in?uence of a different order. Until the last two or three centuries, almost no one would have thought of Exodus as ?poetry? in the same way as the Iliad. It is the Iliad, the tale of the wrath of Achilles in the tenth and ?nal year of the Greek siege of Troy, and its companion piece, the Odyssey, which recounts the ten-year quest of the hero Odysseus to return to his homeland, that de?ne the characteristics of the epic for the Western literary tradition. These characteristics will be familiar to most students who have read a few fragments of the Odyssey or the Divine Comedy or Paradise Lost in a literature anthology. An epic is a poem about a great quest or con?ict that involves the destiny of nations. Its characters are of imposing stature?gods and heroes?its style is grand and digni?ed, its setting encompasses heaven and earth, and it deploys speci?c epic devices like the extended Homeric simile and the catalogue of warriors. And so on. This standard description is certainly unexceptionable as far as it goes, but it leaves out the speed of the narration, the clean simplicity of the style (?grand? must not be allowed to suggest ?heavy? or ?stodgy?), the vivid humanity of the ?heroic? characters, and above all the tight focus of the plot not on the fate of peoples, but on the passionate struggles of individual men and women. The Iliad picks up in the tenth year of the war and begins with tawdry quarrels over captive concubines. It ends not with the wooden horse and the sack of Troy, but with the brutal and tragic slaying of Hector and the sure knowledge that his conqueror Achilles will soon follow him to an early grave. The Odyssey likewise begins in medias res in the ?nal year of the hero?s quest, and its focus is on his very personal story: a man trying to come home after a war to be reunited with his wife and son. Homer has endured because he has told with surpassing beauty, but also with unflinching moral realism, stories that still resonate in our minds and hearts. The Western world has produced three other epics that are essential to a liberal education. Virgil?s Aeneid, Dante?s Divine Comedy, and Milton?s Paradise Lost. Although Homer was the ?rst epic poet, there can be no doubt that Virgil exerted a greater direct in?uence on the development of the literary tradition. After the gradual disintegration of the Roman Empire, Western Europe was generally ignorant of Greek, and Homer?s works were known largely by report. Virgil, however, was read throughout the Middle Ages and exercised an incalculable in?uence on an enormous variety of writers over the next 2,000 years down to our own day. In contrast to the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Aeneid is a re?ective poem about a hero of self-renunciation. A reluctant warrior, ?pius Aeneas? always pays reverence to the gods and to his destiny; he always does his duty. But while Virgil celebrates the triumphant origins of the grandeur that will be Rome, he also ruefully acknowledges the bitter anguish that bloody triumph costs. Virgil is so intensely aware of human limitations, so profoundly concerned with the spiritual trials of his hero, that it is no wonder that he was long regarded as half-Christian. That the central epic of the Western literary tradition is full of ambiguity and doubt about conquest and warfare suggests that European culture is less an unthinking exercise in triumphalist hegemony than many surmise. The place of Virgil in Western literature and civilization is indicated by the next indispensable epic of that tradition: in the Divine Comedy, Dante takes the character ?Virgil? as his mentor and guide through hell and purgatory during the ?rst two-thirds of the poem. His understanding of literary style and his aspiration are shaped by the poet Virgil, and it is Dante?s explicit intention to join Virgil and his classical predecessors in the exclusive circle of culture-de?ning poets and philosophers. As Homer is taken to be an expression of the Greek heroic age and Virgil of the Roman Empire, so Dante is often read and taught as the embodiment of the medieval worldview, and especially of the Thomistic theological synthesis. Naturally, there is an element of truth in these propositions, but they are still super?cial clichés. Dante?s Comedy is certainly a vivid depiction of many aspects of his world?political, religious, social?and it brings to the fore both the philosophical outlook he derived from the thinkers of his era (including Saint Thomas Aquinas) and his bitter personal experience. But the poem is above all a dramatization of a man?s self-discovery and quest for salvation?the restoration of that self. His journey involves the confrontation with sin, the experience of penitence, and the glory of reconciliation with God. The terms of the poem are irreducibly Christian, and it is otherwise unintelligible; however, the Christian account of the human situation is sufficiently resonant to adherents of other religions or of no religion at all for Dante?s poem to engage their intellects and touch their hearts. In the course of creating in the Tuscan vernacular a style to challenge Virgil?s Latin, Dante, with his younger contemporary Petrarch, laid the groundwork of the modern Italian language. In this feat is manifest the intimate and essential relationship between language and literature, which was so signi?cant to Renaissance humanism: by the act of literary creation a language and thus a culture achieves a kind of permanence and ideal realization. As it becomes the Esperanto of the global marketplace, English is showing the same wear and tear and debasement that Latin suffered in the One of the writers who expanded the capacities of the English language is John Milton, author of the last great Western epic. In Milton, as in Dante, the in?uence of Virgil is prominent, and the closest a reader of English can get to the verbal ?feel? of the epic hexameters of the Aeneid without reading it in Latin is to read the blank verse of Paradise Lost. There is no poem in English that better exempli?es the heroic dignity of the grand style, and it is one of the costumes, and elaborate stage sets?as a vehicle for the exposition of an austere Christian Neoplatonism. Although he was the most important poet of the seventeenth century, Milton devoted his prime middle years to political and religious controversy in prose. He won the admiration of Puritans by attacking the liturgy and episcopal hierarchy of the Church of England and lost it by supporting the legalization of divorce (Milton?s ?rst marriage, to a seventeen-year-old royalist, was not a happy one). His vigorous defense of the execution of Charles I favorably impressed Cromwell, and the poet served for a number of years in the Lord Protector?s Interregnum government. It was only after the Restoration of Charles II and the bishops of the Church of England, when Milton had lost his political hopes, his standing in society, and even his eyesight that he wrote those works on biblical themes in classical form that established him among the world?s greatest poets: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. paradoxes of literature that one language can be served so well by bending it to the imperatives of another. It is the measure of Milton?s insight and taste that he so unerringly knows exactly how far he can craft English verse to the turns of Latinate diction and syntax in the pursuit of ?Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime? (I.16). What Milton does with the thematic substance of epic is another paradox. Paradise Lost is, indisputably, a great epic poem of classical style and heroic scale, and yet it not only is the last epic; it may also be said to have ?nished off the epic. The epic catalogues are mostly lists of fallen angels; the character who is most consistently heroic in word and action and attitude is Satan. Most telling, the only epic battle in the entire poem?the War in Heaven in Book VI?is inconsequential and borders at times on the comic, since none of the angels are able to suffer serious injury, much less death, because of their ethereal substance. Whether Milton is shaping a new vision of the heroic military virtues in terms of inner, spiritual strength or simply rejecting them is a question that scholars continue to debate. In any case, no one in the Western world has been able to write a genuine or unquali?ed epic since. Of course there have been numerous important poems that make us think of epics: mock epics, like Dryden?s Mac Flecknoe and Absalom and Achitophel and Pope?s Rape of the Lock and Dunciad, apply epic conventions to the trivial or ridiculous with satiric intent. Romantic epics, like Wordsworth?s Prelude, Byron?s Childe Harold?s Pilgrimage and Don Juan, and Whitman?s Song of Myself (indeed, the entirety of Leaves of Grass) treat the subjective experience of their equivocal heroes in quasi-epic terms. Among the many other ancient long poems that are worth whatever time a student can ?nd for them, mention has been made already of Lucretius?s On the Nature of Things, but the one indispensable poem among them all is Ovid?s Metamorphoses, an elaborate retelling of a vast array of Greek myths involving change of form. The most important source of ancient mythology for medieval and Renaissance writers, the Metamorphoses is also a unique work of both sparkling sophistication and deep feeling. From the Middle Ages, the essential long work of poetry besides Dante?s Comedy is Geoffrey Chaucer?s Canterbury Tales, a collection of comic tales in rhyming couplets. Another remarkable collection of comic tales from the Middle Ages is Giovanni Boccaccio?s prose Decameron, while François Rabelais?s Gargantua and Pantagruel is an unclassi?able narrative, also in prose, which re?ects the mischievous, satirical side of humanist learning also seen in Desiderius Erasmus?s Praise of Folly and Thomas More?s Utopia. Drama is the most social or communal art, because the individual dramatist is altogether dependent upon a host of collaborators to see his work realized, and periods of great drama are understandably rare. There is no dispute about the origin of Western drama in festivals of Dionysius in Athens during the ?fth century before the birth of Christ. The plays that have survived from that century?the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides and the comedies of Aristophanes?are the ?rst dramatic works of our tradition and they are arguably the best. Two millennia will pass before anything comparable emerges. It is late in the Renaissance, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that we come upon the next great wave of theatrical genius in England, France, and Spain. The greatest of these dramatists, certainly the greatest dramatist of all time and possibly the greatest writer, is William Shakespeare. Ideally, every English-speaking student should read all of his plays and poems, but a bare minimum would include the second Henriad (Richard II, 1 and 2 Henry IV, and Henry V ), a selection of his mature romantic comedies (The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night), his late romance, The Tempest, and the greatest of the tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. Among Shakespeare?s English contemporaries, Christopher Marlowe?s Dr. Faustus and at least a few of Ben Jonson?s comedies?for example, Volpone and The Alchemist?should not be missed. Seventeenth-century France boasts its great triumvirate: the tragedians Corneille and Racine and the comedian Molière. For Corneille, Le Cid is the obvious choice; for Racine, Andromache or Phaedra; for Molière, The Misanthrope or Tartuffe. Spanish Golden-Age drama? the theatre of Cervantes? contemporaries?is an undiscovered treasure for most Americans. Lope de Vega is notable for his prodigious fecundity rather than for any one outstanding play. His younger contemporary, Calderón de la Barca, was also remarkably productive, but his Life Is a Dream stands out as perhaps the most powerful and representative baroque drama, while The Prodigious Magician is a fascinating version of the Faust legend. Tirso de Molina is known for one extremely powerful and in?uential play, The Joker of Seville and the Dinner Guest of Stone, the earliest theatrical treatment of the Don Juan legend. Claims may be made for Congreve during the period of the Restoration and for Sheridan, Beaumarchais, and Schiller during the eighteenth century, but the one indisputable dramatic masterpiece since the Renaissance is Goethe?s Faust. Perhaps more of a dramatic epic than a conventional stage play, Faust is probably the greatest single work of Romanticism and of German literature. Its place at the summit of world literature results from its unique blend of stylistic power, dramatic characterization, and philosophical depth and sophistication. Norway?s Henrik Ibsen is probably the indispensable dramatist at the beginning of the modern period, but claims could be made for George Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, and Luigi Pirandello. The dominant literary form of the twentieth century is prose ?ction, especially the novel. Although it is by no means the earliest piece of extended prose ?ction, the novel may be said to begin with Miguel de Cervantes?s Don Quixote, written in the early seventeenth century, which de?nes itself precisely as a narrative of naturally explicable events among recognizable characters of everyday life, as opposed to the fantastic exploits and magical escapades of chivalric romance. The central character?s generally futile efforts to dwell in the enchanted realm of unfettered fancy are thus instrumental in laying down the realistic boundaries of the workaday world in which this new form, the novel, typically takes place. The realism associated with the novel (and the short story) refers principally to the accurate and convincing evocation of the concrete features of an ordinary world inhabited by recognizable human beings. Even a science ?ction novel (as opposed to a work of fantasy) attempts to create a plausibly factual world of the future by extrapolating from current scienti?c fact and theory. Works of fantasy?from Beowulf to The Faerie Queene to The Lord of the Rings?although they include purely imaginary features (enchanted lakes, dragons, elves) may, nonetheless, be works of powerful moral and spiritual realism. ?Realism? in this latter sense is not, however, a strictly literary term denoting a generic characteristic. The genius of Don Quixote lies in its dwelling in the territory of rigorous realism while glancing continuously and longingly at the ideal kingdom of chivalric imagination, thus merging ?realism? in its literary and moral senses. Cervantes?s most effective early disciples in the development of the novel as a realist genre were eighteenth-century Englishmen, and among their novels the most important are probably Daniel Defoe?s Robinson Crusoe, Henry Fielding?s Tom Jones, and Laurence Sterne?s Tristram Shandy. The great age of the novel is the nineteenth century, and England again boasts a remarkable galaxy of ?ction writers. At the turn of the century Jane Austen created six exquisitely crafted comedies of manners that combine sparkling style, keen irony, and profound moral insight. Pride and Prejudice may have been displaced as the most important by Emma as the result of a ?urry of excellent cinematic adaptations. Among the great Victorian novels, Dickens?s David Copper?eld, Bleak House, and Great Expectations; Thackeray?s Vanity Fair; George Eliot?s Middlemarch and Mill on the Floss; and Trollope?s Barchester Towers and The Way We Live Now would seem to be indispensable. In America, Melville?s very long Moby-Dick and very short Billy Budd and Mark Twain?s wonderful Huckleberry Finn are contemporaneous achievements. Whether Mary Shelley?s Frankenstein and Nathaniel Hawthorne?s Scarlet Letter should be classi?ed as novels or gothic romances, they are both books that should not be missed. In France the three great nineteenth-century novelists are Victor Hugo, especially for Les Misérables, Honoré de Balzac, especially for Père Goriot, and Gustave Flaubert, especially for Madame Bovarie. But it may be Russia that has the strongest claim to have produced the greatest novels of all time in Leo Tolstoy?s Anna Karenina and War and Peace, Fyodor Dostoyevsky?s Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov, and Ivan Turgenev?s Fathers and Sons. In England Heart of Darkness and other works by the transplanted Pole, Joseph Conrad, and the late novels of the transplanted American, Henry James, mark the beginning of the twentieth century. The three great names of ?high modernist? ?ction in the ?rst half of the twentieth century are the Irishman James Joyce, the Frenchman Marcel Proust, and the German Thomas Mann, whose characteristic works, Ulysses, Remembrance of Things Past, and The Magic Mountain, respectively, are marked by a preoccupation with alienated subjective consciousness and innovative technical virtuosity that renders their work very difficult?if not inaccessible?to most readers. Joyce?s greatest disciple, and one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century, is William Faulkner in works like The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying. Yet the most enduring novelist of the early twentieth century, although she lacks academic cachet at the present, may be Sigrid Undset for her multivolume historical works, Kristin Lavransdatter and The Master of Hestviken. Perhaps no one comes closer to the great nineteenth-century Russians in achieving the esssential task of the novelist: to shape a complex, compelling narrative, peopled with convincing characters, and trans?gured by profound spiritual signi?cance. It remains to mention the various genres of shorter poems: pastorals, satires, epigrams, and the lyric. While the extended narrative works?epic poetry and the novel?involve telling a story about various characters by means of a third-person narration, and drama by means of ?rst-person dialogue among the characters, the typical shorter poem seems to be the utterance of the poet himself, speaking or singing his own thoughts or feelings. Certainly part of the power of both lyrical and satirical poetry is a sense of intimacy with the poet, of gazing through a window into a creative mind. This preoccupation with the actual, historical poet is, however, an illusion and a distraction from the poetry itself, which is always a ?ction, always a representation. Once a poet has set about to compose a poem (something made), the sense of sincerity and spontaneity are part of the ?ction. The poet is playing a role, assuming a voice, creating a persona, even if the poem has been inspired directly by his own personal experience. Persona, in Latin the mask worn by actors in Roman drama, is the literary term of art for precisely the ?mask? or ?countenance? the poet puts on and hides behind in order to provide a vehicle for the emotion and insight that must be detached from his own private experience in order to become part of ours. Hence even if someone discovers indisputable evidence of the identity of ?Mr. W. H.? or proves that there really was a ?Dark Lady? in Shakespeare?s actual life, these facts about the poet will not settle the interpretation of the poetry of the Sonnets. Since the shorter poetic forms are even more dependent than drama and narrative on nuances of style, it is very difficult to get any sense of the power and beauty of translated lyrics, epigrams, or satires. A few poets are so critical to understanding the development of Western culture, not to say literature, that they must be known, even if only in translation. Among these I would include the surviving lyrics of Sappho, at least a few of the lyrics of Catullus, Ovid?s Amores, and, above all, Petrarch?s sonnets to Laura, which are crucial to our complex and equivocal ideas of sexual love even to this day. Equally important are the Odes (Carmina) of Horace, which are one of the principal sources of the idea of the virtuous, modest, but independent country life?a perennial theme in Anglo-American literature; his satires, which supply both the classic image of the inescapable bore and the earliest version of the Country Mouse/City Mouse story; and the satires of Juvenal, which provide an in?uential condemnation of corrupt urban life, the idea of the ?Vanity of Human Wishes? (in Dr. Johnson?s English adaptation), and the telling satirist?s phrase, ?savage indignation.? There are many beautiful medieval lyrics, but the great tradition of the English lyric begins with Wyatt and Surrey early in the sixteenth century. Sidney?s Astrophil and Stella, Spenser?s Amoretti (along with his Epithalamion?the finest wedding song in any language), and Shakespeare?s Sonnets are the best English sonnet sequences. The seventeenth century is a treasure trove of lyrical poetry. John Donne?s Songs and Sonets, his Satyres, Holy Sonnets, and Hymns are at the top of the list along with the ?minor poems? of John Milton. Ben Jonson, Robert Herrick, and Andrew Marvell wrote exquisite lyrics and poems of reflection; George Herbert?s The Temple is the finest collection of religious lyrics in English, but Crashaw?s Carmen Deo Nostro and Henry Vaughan?s Silex Scintillans are worthy successors. John Dryden, already mentioned as an author of mock epic, produced two of the best works of religio-political satire in Religio Laici and the very much underrated The Hind and the Panther. Dryden lays the foundation for the tremendous achievement in satire and mock epic of Alexander Pope, who dominates the eighteenth century. The next great burst of lyrical poetry comes with the Romantic Movement: Blake?s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, Coleridge?s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and the great odes of Shelley and Keats are among the most memorable of English poems. Wordsworth and Byron, mentioned for their variations on epic, also wrote many ?ne lyrics. The Victorian successors to the Romantics (most notably Tennyson, Browning, and Matthew Arnold) all produced poems??Ulysses,? ?My Last Duchess,? and ?Dover Beach? immediately spring to mind?that everyone should know. Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose work remained unpublished for almost thirty years after his death, was the greatest English devotional poet since Herbert. The ?rst great American poets come late in the nineteenth century: the reclusive spinster Emily Dickinson and the bumptious, self-educated and self-promoting Walt Whitman. William Butler Yeats may well be the greatest poet to write in English in the twentieth century, and I would add Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, and Wallace Stevens. All the authors and works that I have mentioned are worth reading, and every educated man and woman will wish to have at least a passing acquaintance with almost all of them; but of course these are works that require (and repay!) close attention and repeated readings. Still, much of one?s reading should be for pleasure, and everyone will have a personal interest in certain books and authors because of sympathy with their religious or ethnic attachments or their philosophical or political views. Such interests ought to be pursued, but all one?s reading will be enhanced by a sense of the overall contours of Western literature and by an acquaintance with its greatest monuments. Readers, like authors, need to know where they stand in relation to the past in order to live fully in the present; they need to recognize the genius of others in order to realize their own. NOTES: 1. Norton Anthology of English Literature, ed. M. H. Abrams, et al. (New York: Norton, 1986, 5th Ed., II), 864. 2. Wordsworth, ?Preface? to Lyrical Ballads (1800), in Wordsworth: Poetical Works, ed. Thomas Hutchison (London: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1969), 737. 3. René Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature, 3rd ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), 142-57. 4. There are, to be sure, twentieth-century poems that are quite long, but no one, I think, has ever found a coherent story in Ezra Pound?s Cantos or David Jones?s Anathémata. 5. An Apologie for Poetrie, in Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. G. Gregory Smith (London: Oxford University Press, 1904), 1, 160. 6. Ibid., 159. 7. Ibid., 156. 8. Eliot, ?Tradition and the Individual Talent,? in The Sacred Wood (London: Methuen, 1920), 47-59. Response & Analysis Teaching Literature in Secondary School (Excerpt) Second Edition Robert E. Probst About ten years ago, Louise Rosenblatt, while sitting in Princeton, New Jersey, talked with fifty teachers and me as we huddled around a speakerphone in Anchorage, Alaska. During the conversation, Dr. Rosenblatt made the remark that she had written Literature as Exploration ?as a defense of democracy. " I wasn?t sure what she meant at the time, and may not fully grasp it even now. I think, though, that she meant that we have to learn to read both our texts and the world responsively and responsibly if we?re to preserve democratic processes. That is to say, we must not simply submit to texts, accepting too easily what they offer us, following them too willingly wherever they would take us. Rather, we have to bring those texts to bear upon our lives, and our lives to bear upon the texts, reflecting conscientiously upon the experience, attitudes, and ideas that emerge from our reading, analyzing both the text and ourselves, continually rethinking who we are, what we believe and value, and where we stand in the world. Literature offers us the chance to do that thinking. If our students learn to read in that way, they may be able to exercise some control over their lives and participate in the free thought necessary for a democracy; if they don?t, they?re prepared only to follow, accepting someone else?s decisions and judgments. This book is an effort to figure out how we might teach that responsive and responsible reading in the secondary schools, grades six through twelve. Whatever changes have found their way into this revised edition I owe to a great many people from whom I?ve learned, borrowed, and stolen. Louise Rosenblatt is still the foundation; her theory is as strong and vital now as it was when she first articulated it almost 70 years ago. Many others, however, have helped me explore it and have shown me, more clearly than I otherwise could have seen, what it means in the classroom and in a democratic society: R. Baird Shuman led me to first explore these ideas; Kylene Beers taught me everything I know (a small part of what she knows) about working with kids who have difficulty reading; Ken Holmes showed me skillful and sensitive teaching of less privileged students in an impoverished inner-city; Joan Wynne helped me tremendously to better understand African-American and Latino students; Hal Foster demonstrated for me how universities and schools can work together; and there are many others (too many to name), including the teachers studying at Georgia State University who put up with my experiments in the classroom and shared their own with me, and countless middle and high school students around the country who have helped immensely, although they may not know it. I would also like to thank Lisa Luedeke, who diligently kept after me to get this revision completed?it would never have happened without her support and encouragement?and the others at Heinemann who work so hard to bring a book together. In many ways, it?s been a group project, although I?m responsible for the misspelled words and other errors. ?Bob Probst Marathon, Florida July 2, 2004 Chapter 3 The Reader and Other Readers You usually don?t go to a movie alone. Not, in any case, if there?s someone else around who?d like to see it, too. It?s just more fun to share the popcorn and to have someone else to talk with about the movie afterwards. If it?s a good movie, you?ll have much to say, questions to ask, scenes to talk about; if it isn?t, you?ll have complaints you?ll want to share with someone. You?d rather not go to a movie, watch it, and then go home, take out the trash, wash the dishes, and pay your bills. A great movie, even just a good movie?even a bad movie, for that matter?demands discussion. You need to sit down and talk about it. Talk is called for. You don?t walk out of the theater thinking, ?I sure wish my old English teacher, Ms. Riley, was (or did she say it should be were?) here to give me one of those devious ten-question multiple-choice or true-false or fill-in-the-blank quizzes she used to give us every other day to make sure we?d done our homework, because I know I?d knock it?I paid attention; I caught every nuance, every detail; I know the plot, the characters, the cinematic techniques, the pacing, the tone, the theme, the style, everything about this movie. I?d get 100 percent, an A+. She?d be so proud of me she?d write a note home telling my parents that I was a model student and that they should raise my allowance and give me back my driver?s license. She?d start drafting my letters of recommendation to Oxford and the Sorbonne. ? No, you don?t think those thoughts. Nor, on the other hand, if it were (or was?) a confusing movie?something like Memento, with its recursive structure, starting and backing up, retracing its steps, going over the same events again and again?do you walk into the lobby and call out, ?Is there an English teacher in the house?? hoping that one will step forward proudly and proclaim, ?I am here! What is it you need dissected, vivisected, analyzed, explicated, and made crystal clear?? No, what you do is head to the nearest coffeehouse, sit down with your friend or friends, order a drink, and talk, just talk. You compare notes, tell them what you liked, ask them about what confused you, argue about whether Bruce Willis or Anthony Hopkins might have been better in that role than Hal Foster (probably not). Good movies, and good books, want to be talked about. But it doesn?t usually happen. Not outside of the classroom, in any case. Kylene may give me a book that she loved, but by the time I?ve read it and get back to Houston she?s moved on and read twelve other books. I pass it along to Hal, but he goes off to Akron and we don?t talk until I?m deep into something Kathleen sent me so I can?t remember the issues he?d like to discuss. There aren?t enough people reading the same thing at the same time. Except in English classes. There you have a rare opportunity. You have thirty kids and a book. You can talk. Chapter 2 was about what happens when someone reads and reflects upon a literary work; it focused on the individual response to a text. Good reading, it was argued, is neither submission nor arrogance. That is to say, it is not simply a matter of absorbing the work, receiving it as one receives the comfort of a warm shower. Nor, on the other hand, is it an opportunity either to loose one?s unconsidered opinions upon others or to indulge in quiet self-deception. Rather, it is a matter of responding to the text and of thinking carefully about both the response and the words on the page in order to understand both oneself and the work better. This notion of good reading recognizes limitations to any one person?s knowledge and experience, and asserts that those limitations, that particular point of view, necessarily shape the understanding of the text. In this chapter we?ll look at the relationships among readers. In the discussion of the Jones poem, ?As Best She Could,? we examined how various readers? points of view might shape their readings of the poem and how reading the poem might in turn shape the points of view. People will read the poem differently, and if they read carefully and thoughtfully, they will be slightly different people when they finish reading. The Hughes poem ?A View of a Pig? provided an illustration of the transition from response to analysis, showing how the responses of students could raise questions that compel them to look closely at the words on the page for answers. So far, the discussion has concentrated on the individual?s private reading of the work, her transaction, as Louise Rosenblatt calls it, with the text. Once students are beyond the schools? reach, their reading is likely to be not only private, but also independent and solitary, unassisted by any other readers. They probably will not search out book discussion groups or critical essays to help them think through their experiences with literature. While in school, however, they have the opportunity to invite others into the private exchange between work and self. Other readers can help tremendously by calling attention to different readings, alternatives they might not otherwise have noticed. It is with this opportunity that this chapter is concerned. The opportunity to read in company with others is not without its drawbacks. Though the group provides a variety of insights and responses to work with, it demands tolerance of occasional digressions and ramblings; though it provides a forum for your own thoughts, it demands that you share the platform with others; though it provides feedback for those who speak, it allows a retreat into anonymity for the timid ones; and though it may provide much stimulation for thought, it may also intrude disruptively into the private meditations that are part of the personal and solitary act of reading. Individual students may find themselves lost in the crowd, with little chance to express their thoughts, or perhaps even to think them. With other subjects the problem may not be so acute, but the teaching of literature must be grounded in the students? responses to the text, so they need the opportunity to articulate those responses. The ideas and concepts in the literature classroom do not have identity and substance independent of the students; rather, they are produced by the students as they interact with the text. Unless students read and respond, there is no literature to teach?only texts and information about texts. The unresponsive student of algebra may grasp its basic principles, and the indifferent student of history may begin to comprehend the sequence and the rationale of events, but the student of literature who hides in the crowd or parrots the thinking of classmates, who learns only to paraphrase the critical judgments of scholars or to memorize peripheral information about authors? lives and historical periods, has not begun to learn the literature. Those parroted observations and memorized judgments reflect not less learning, but no learning whatsoever. They indicate that the student has failed to confront the literature and test himself against it. Insofar as the classroom permits students to avoid dealing with responses, it permits them to ignore the literature. So the classroom may help or hurt, and the teacher?s job is to manage it in such a way that it helps more than it hurts. We may begin by considering how reading in a group differs from reading alone. What differences does it make to a reader to have twenty-five or thirty other readers around, all dealing with the same text? Perhaps the most significant difference is the group?s pressure on the individual student to respond to the text aloud. Reading without anyone else to talk to, a student too easily puts a work aside without articulating her thoughts, and thus without fully digesting it. Without the talking or the writing that might follow reading, the student?s reaction to the work remains undefined, unspecified. George Henry describes the typical act of reading: We read at our own pace, finish with an inchoate lump of meaning unformed by language, and then go on to other reading or non-reading activity. Only when we try to communicate the ideas of the passage to ourselves or to others or to relate it to another work or passage do we determine what meaning is really ours. . . . In short, we must conceptualize it?join it to something. That is, we must synthesize it, which always entails bringing something of ourselves to it. The conclusion for teaching, it would seem, is that reading is inextricably tied up with both oral and written composition, with experience, with other concepts inside us, and with other reading. 1 The group, because it consists of others whose inchoate lumps are different from mine, compels me to define my own more carefully, and thus see how I differ from those around me. Students who can be brought to sense their uniqueness can be encouraged to take interest in and explore it further. It is the group that gives one the sense of uniqueness; without others, the individual remains indistinguishable, an image without a contrasting background. The varying perspectives that may emerge in discussing a literary work with a class fill in that background for the individual, helping him to see more precisely where he himself stands; in other words, the group supplements his imagination by showing him alternatives that he might not have envisioned as he read the work. Recognizing those alternative readings assists and encourages him to clarify his own and thus to understand himself. And?equally important?the discourse about readings may enable him to come to understand his fellow students better. This testing of oneself against others may occur infrequently. Students are likely to resist it. Followers are, after all, more numerous than leaders; buying is easier than creating. Given the opportunity, students may simply accept, and even seek, someone else?s reading. It?s much easier, after all, to wait until the class star has spoken and then say ?I think what she said? than it is to think something yourself. Teachers who try to encourage students to think independently, to reason out their own understanding of a text, soon come to hear in their dreams the constant refrain ?But tell us what it means. ? The students want something they can jot down in their notes, if they take notes, with assurance that these notes will be both right and important?that is to say, that they?ll be on the test. The teacher, after all, is the one with answers?the answers that count, at least, on important things like tests. Raised on a diet of multiple-choice questions, students come to view thinking as a process of choosing from among several statements, one of which is right and four of which are wrong. If occasionally intellection is complicated by a choice that reads ?all (or none) of the above,? they suspect that someone has been careless or lazy, allowing ambiguity to creep in and muddy the processes of thought. Such students, given the chance, will agree with the teacher?s reading. If you withhold your own interpretation, they will fall back on the second line of defense and accept the reading offered by that student whom they know to be most often right. Only when all else fails will they consider the desperate and frightening course of thinking for themselves. The pain that labor inflicts is likely to discourage them from ever attempting it again. Finding Responsibilities The testing of self against others isn?t natural or easy. Overcoming the inertia of the group and breaking down students? resistance to the work of thinking require some ingenuity on the part of the teacher. This problem is solved in part by careful selection of works, an issue we?ll discuss more fully in later chapters. If a work touches upon matters in which students have a vital interest, and if the students can read it with enough ease to be able to grasp the fundamental issues, then they may react strongly enough to the text to feel the need to speak. Yet it?s also surprising how often works that seem to have little relevance to the students will nonetheless sustain a long and energetic discussion. The energy for these discussions often seems to come not so much from the work itself as from the lucky appearance of a difference in the readings of several students. It is as though the literary work has served as the catalyst for an examination of oneself and one?s friends in the classroom. Those moments are hard to predict and harder still to arrange, but the teacher who seeks them can do several things to increase their frequency. First of all, we can demonstrate that they are welcome, which we may do by inviting and accepting personal response and by encouraging attention to the statements made by students in the class. Using them simply as building blocks in an argument of our own, as steps to a predetermined reading to which we will lead the class regardless of its inclinations, tells the class that their insights and questions are valuable only insofar as they contribute to our labors. On the other hand, listening to them and dealing with them indicates that we consider them significant and worth investigating. In such an atmosphere students are more likely to make statements interesting enough to stimulate thought and discusssion. Response Statements Further, you can find ways to put mild pressure on students to think and to formulate their reactions to what they have read. For instance, you may deprive the students of the opportunity to seize upon someone else?s reading by asking them, immediately after they have finished reading a work, to take five or ten minutes to note their first responses to it. Without dictating a form for the notes, suggest that they jot down questions, observations about the worth of the piece, memories it calls to mind, speculations about the writer, or condemnation or approval of the ideas presented. Required to verbalize in solitude, however briefly, students will be forced at least to begin to make sense of their impressions of the text. No one else will have said anything with which they can simply agree; they will have to begin, by themselves, the labor of conceptualizing. Having begun it, they may feel some commitment to develop or explore it, since it is their own. Thus those brief notes may yield the substance of the discussion. Depending on the group, you may want to allow discussion to begin informally, when one of the short statements read aloud elicits a reaction from students, or you may prefer to use the first several minutes of discussion to select from among the statements several that you can arrange as an agenda for the session. You might ask for several students to volunteer to read or paraphrase their notes, jotting down the essence on the board to serve as a rough agenda for subsequent talk, or else collect the papers from the class and, looking through them, read out loud several that you think may be provocative, preserving the anonymity of the writer if that seems desirable. Another alternative is to collect the five-minute responses and sort them into groups. You might tell the class, ?I need about five or ten minutes to arrange these responses according to the issues or ideas they address. Please just look over the text again quietly so that I can do that? (a slightly disguised request to re-read, pleading your necessity, not theirs). Then sort them quickly so that you have groups of three to six, rearrange the students accordingly, and invite them to talk about their various readings. Once, feeling either bold or lazy (or both), I called for their responses, telling them that I was going to quickly sort them thematically. I took up the papers and then, poring intently over them as if studying every nuance to be sure that my grouping was carefully done, I randomly divided them into five or six stacks. Then I rearranged the class and asked each group to study the collection of responses they?d had to the text and try to figure out what it was about their brief papers that had led me to put them together in a group. Several groups successfully articulated some idea that bound them together; a few struggled fruitlessly to find a common thread. But the point, of course, was simply to get them talking. If you?re discussing these free-writes with an active, alert, outspoken group, the students might be content to listen, as the responses are read, for the ones that arouse their interest. On the other hand, if the students are too outspoken or eager, then submitting them to the discipline of working by an agenda to ensure that all of the worthy statements are considered may be more effective. A more reticent group, happy to let you read all the remarks without commenting at all, may need more than a casual invitation to comment on whatever statement appears interesting. For that group, the formality of an established agenda may be more productive. The complexity of the work under consideration may also influence your choice of method. A work complex enough to elicit a wide range of response, touching several different themes, might be better handled in the more orderly fashion, again, to ensure that the various issues raised by the students are all given time. Regardless of the technique, you should keep in mind that the brief writing period is intended to force the students into solitary, unassisted thought about the work read and to obtain that thought from them so the group can discuss it. The justification for isolating them at first is that the students? responses will more likely be their own and that the collection of responses will be more varied and wide-ranging. Thus we need to demonstrate our respect for that variety by refraining from criticism of the statements and by managing the discussion with some discretion. If we too blatantly select statements we either like or disagree with, or those of particular students, either good or bad, it will soon become clear to the students that we are not using the statements to begin a discussion of their responses and concerns, but that the statements are simply the hooks upon which we can hang our own views. That is not to say that we should completely avoid guiding the discussion; the excesses of the overly indulgent teacher who confuses freedom and anarchy do the student little good. There is nothing wrong, for instance, with suggesting that the class pursue certain questions before it undertakes the discussion of others. For instance, a poem might elicit the following two hypothetical responses from two students in the class: ?I like the character in this poem. She seems to me to be a bit confused, but good-natured and kind. ? ?This poem represents everything that is wrong with twentieth-century poetry. It?s the worst of Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan wrapped up in one. ? The teacher would, of course, have to take the class into consideration, but if the class is typical, beginning discussion with the first response rather than the second may yield more lively talk. The first response focuses on something fairly specific? the character?and comments on it in a personal, subjective manner. The remark could easily lead to further talk about what the student, and other students, find appealing or unappealing in people, and to observations about the specifics in the poem that develop an impression of the character. The second response, on the other hand, tends toward the abstract, the formal, and the scholarly, and it makes broad statements that would be difficult for most high school groups to handle very well. What, for instance, does the speaker mean by ?twentieth-century poetry?? And to what characteristics of Thomas and Dylan is she referring? This second response, if dealt with early on, seems likely to impede the discussion. First, it will probably intimidate or annoy those students who feel uncomfortable with the vast concepts to which the speaker has so casually referred. A high school student who can easily sum up all twentieth-century poetry and test this particular poem against that summation either has an imposing intellect or is a pompous fraud. Even if such a response does not antagonize the rest of the class, it is likely to lead to vague talk that, by avoiding specifics, manages to sound impressive without saying much at all. A discussion of twentieth-century poetry presumes knowledge of twentieth-century poetry, and most students don?t have the background to handle such a large and slippery concept. The first response will draw more students into the conversation. It does not pretend to great scholarship, breadth of reading, or depth of insight; it simply comments on the person created by the poem. More students are likely to feel capable of discussing such a mundane, human issue. The talk is also more likely to lead to specifics: Who is the character? How is she represented to the reader? What is the source of her confusion? Why does she seem kind? All of these questions direct attention to the poem, calling upon the students to refer to and draw inferences from the text. The first response may also lead to reflection upon one?s own perceptions or values: What characteristics do you consider desirable or attractive in people? What features do you share with the character in the poem? These reflections, too, might lead back to the poem: Does this character actually have those virtues you have said are desirable, and if so, how are they shown? Such discussion is concrete, being built on specific observations and inferences that can be traced to the text. It demands actual thought, not simply manipulation of phrases likely to be encouraged by too hasty an effort to discuss ?twentieth-century poetry. ? After the concrete discussion the first response might promote, the class may be ready to deal with the more abstract second response. Students may be reminded of other poems as they talk, and thus may recall specific examples of twentieth century poetry to compare with the poem before them. By replacing the generalization with examples, they can retain some of the concreteness of the earlier discussion. They may even arrive at a statement about twentieth-century poetry in general. Questions may also arise about the characteristics of Dylan and Thomas, and samples of their work may be presented for examination by the group. The second response is not, in other words, a useless statement to be discreetly avoided by the teacher. But it is more difficult to deal with effectively and therefore not a good place to begin. Start with the concrete and specific, and then move on. After discussing the first statement about the poem, the class may sense the vagueness and ambiguity in its efforts to deal with the second. They may see that the second response brings up issues they are not yet ready to handle comfortably. That student who offered the second response may be gently led to qualify it. She may be compelled to reflect on the possibility that the response was not really a response to the poem, but an effort to impress the teacher and the class with insight and knowledge she did not possess. That, however, is a judgment for the student herself to make. Although the teacher may suspect such a possibility, she should not voice her suspicions too openly for fear students will hesitate to contribute in the future. The purpose of these response statements, after all, is to initiate discussion. They are not to be treated as the products of thorough, painstaking thought, but as guesses or suggestions to be explored. If the exploration leads nowhere, nothing is lost but a little time, and the class may turn its attention to other possibilities, one of which may lead to insight. On the other hand, our second student might really be on to something. She may not simply be trying to impress the class and the teacher, and might be encouraged to find a poem by Thomas and a song by Dylan and show us just what she means. How do these texts compare with one another? What are their similarities? How do they all represent ?twentieth-century poetry?? The teacher may assist in finding the most productive route for the discussion to take, but should not deceive the students about the nature of thought by suggesting that it is all orderly, cumulative, and successful. Students must learn, largely by experience, that some beginnings are more likely to lead to productive discussions than others, and they must also learn to tolerate uncertainties and failures. A lesson that moves logically, almost inexorably, from beginning to end may give the teacher a satisfying sense of craftsmanship, but it does not accurately reflect the process of thinking any more than a research report accurately reflects the process of scientific experimentation. The classroom should, as often as possible, demonstrate the process of thinking as well as its results. Patterns of Discussion Brief responses, jotted down in the five or ten minutes after reading, may serve as the basis for a variety of patterns of discussion. As we have noted, you may read them aloud, with pauses for discussion when one of them provokes a reaction; you may call on volunteers to present their statements to the class; or you may list the statements on the board and rearrange them into a formal agenda for the class session. There are other possibilities as well. For instance, the teacher may wish to pair students initially, asking them to read one another?s statements and react to them. The pairing for this activity could be purposeful; you might place together two students whose views are radically different, so that under your watchful eye they could learn to listen more attentively and tactfully to opposing viewpoints. You might even prescribe that students must first find something in their partner?s statement to agree with or commend, if only the neatness of the handwriting, to begin the conversation on a more pleasant, less adversarial note. After discussing in pairs, the class might combine pairs into groups of four, and perhaps later into still larger groups. Discussion in these small groups will be easier for students to handle than discussion with the full class. The talk will be less likely to jump from one issue to another, but may instead be progressive, allowing the students to build upon and come to understand one another?s ideas. After the groups have reached a certain size, perhaps four or eight, the entire class may come together again to hear the ideas the smaller groups developed. Discussion first in pairs and then in slightly larger groups serves a purpose like that of the brief writing period following the reading. It allows ideas to germinate and grow enough so that they can?t be ignored. In the full class, the ideas of the more vocal students are likely to command attention, whereas equally valuable ideas of more timid students may wither away unnoticed. If, however, those fragile thoughts grow for a few minutes in the more comfortable setting of small groups, they may root firmly enough that students will be willing to present them to the class. As the short writing period discourages students from simply waiting for someone else?s ideas about the reading, so the small group discussion nurtures ideas until they can stand on their own before the full class. The talk will wander far from the original statements, and when discussion has concluded, those first statements may again become useful. You may ask the students to look at their first notes, reflect upon them, and again write briefly: Have their original ideas changed? Have they seen the poem from other perspectives? Have their first responses been confirmed? Has anything been revealed to them about their classmates or themselves? The original statements may serve the students as a journal might, to remind them of how they felt and what they thought. Reviewing those notes may help to show them what they have learned in the discussion. They may even grow less eager for your explanations of works and less dependent on the narcotic of grades for their sense of accomplishment. These notes will also give you an excellent way to judge the effectiveness of discussion and the appropriateness of the literature. If the notes show that the students have been thinking and listening to others respectfully but not submissively, then they are likely to be enjoying the work. If the responses remain arid and detached, and if the notes written after discussion indicate that little or nothing has happened, then you can reconsider the material or the way you are managing the class. One of our goals for the literature classroom is to invite students into the ongoing dialogue about significant issues that is our culture. The guided discussions within the classroom should ultimately prepare them to take responsibility for themselves in all of those discussions they?ll later enter without the aid of a teacher. Thus it?s important to move them toward independence, gradually backing away and allowing them to take more and more control of the discussion. Consider the activity presented in Workshop #4. DIALOG WITH A TEXT Adapted from Response & Analysis Teaching Literature in Secondary School by Robert E. Probst Prepare a small booklet of prompts of questions (I?ll suggest some below) that might guide the students through a conversation about a text. It?s easily done by duplicating each prompt in each quadrant of a page as follows: This way, when the sheets are copied (roughly one set for every four students in the class) and collated into sets, they can then be stapled and cut, each yielding four small booklets 5. 5 inches by 4. 25 inches. A TEXT Pass out whatever text you plan to use. A poem is suitable since you might be able to handle it satisfactorily within the class period, but even a short story, provided students can read it quickly (or the night before), would also work. If you?re about to begin work on a longer work, perhaps a novel, then you might select a passage that you find interesting or provocative. Then hand out the booklets, requesting that students not read through their booklet in advance, but rather take it page by page as discussion progresses. Tell them to read the text, or read it aloud to them, and then ask them to begin working their way through the booklet. Suggest that they spend a few minutes reflecting on the question or prompt, jotting down notes about it in the booklet itself, and then share their thoughts and talk as long as seems productive. If the discussion takes a path of its own, urge them to follow it, even if it strays from the text or the question. Tell them that when the talk seems to flag, they should agree as a group that they?re ready to move on, and then turn to the next prompt, read it, again reflect for a few moments, and then discuss. Let them continue for what seems to you an appropriate period, and then pull the entire group back together to consider the issues that have come up in the small groups. Here?s a set of prompts for you to use or consider (obviously they would have to be modified for students according to their maturity): Instructions Please read the poem and take a moment or two to reflect on it. Then turn to the next page and begin. Take a few minutes?as much as you need or want?with each question. Please reflect on each question for a moment or two, perhaps jotting down brief notes, before discussing it. Some may be more productive than others for you, and you may wish to give those more time. There is no rush, no need to finish them all. Please don?t glance ahead in the booklet. Introduce yourself to your partner(s): Where are you from, what are your interests, and so on. Ask any questions you wish. What feeling or emotion did the text give you? Describe it briefly and explain why you think the text caused that reaction. What memory does the text call to mind?of people, places, events, sights, smells, or even of something more ambiguous, perhaps feelings or attitudes? What did you see happening in the text? Paraphrase it, retelling the event briefly. When you discuss it, see if there are differences in the paraphrasing among discussion partners. Did the text give you any ideas or cause you to think about anything in particular? Explain briefly what thoughts it led you to. What is the most important word in the text? Explain briefly why you think the word you?ve picked is the most important. What is the most important phrase in the text? Explain briefly why you think it?s so important. What image or picture did you see as you read the text? It might be something you remember and not something in the text. Describe it briefly. What sort of person do you imagine the author of this text to be? How did your reading of the text differ from that of your discussion partner(s)? In what ways were they similar? How did your understanding of the text or your feelings about it change as you talked? Does this text make you think of another text, song, TV show, or literary work? What is it and what connection is there between the two pieces? What did you observe or learn about your discussion partner(s) as your discussion has progressed? If you were to write a few pages, maybe a letter, about your reading of the text, who would you write to and what would you write about? If you?re trying this activity, take your time with it. The objective is not to finish first, to rush through the questions and be done with them, but rather to start conversation and see where it takes you. Remember the movie and the coffeehouse discussion afterward?you aren?t hoping that the cab gets there before you finish your drink; you?re hoping the snowdrifts slow it down enough so that you can have one more and make this one other point you have to make or ask this one other question you just have to ask. Students think of questions as tasks to be accomplished. They can get through twenty discussion questions of the complexity of ?What is the meaning of life?? in roughly five minutes. The problem is to slow them down, to encourage them to explore, to relax, to investigate, to speculate, to consider and reconsider, to tell stories, to ask more questions, to remember, to explain, to learn a bit more about the movie or the text and the friends who spent the evening with them. Focused Writing You might also vary the pattern by placing constraints on the written responses. Ask students to respond to a certain aspect of the work: the motivation of a character, the influence of the setting on the mood, the nature of the conflict between two characters, the values implicit in the choices characters make, or the values and beliefs of the writer as shown in the work. Or suggest that they respond from a particular perspective. If, for instance, you want students to compare the works of two authors, one of whom the class has recently read, have them read the first work of the new writer and respond as though they were the writer they have previously studied. Such an assignment is, of course, more complicated and demanding, and you have to judge the group carefully before making it. Further, keep in mind that any restriction on student response sacrifices something. The virtue of the free response is that it identifies the student?s most vivid connection with the text. It may be a memory, an interpretation, an image, or even a digression that seems entirely unrelated, but it is the immediate consequence of the encounter of reader and text, and is thus material from which meaning might be made. Constraints on the response diminish the chances that it will be so intimate a part of the reader. The constrained response is the result of the encounter of three forces?the reader, the text, and the assignment; that third variable will interfere with the interaction of the first two. Presumably, compensation lies in stretching students to new perceptions they might have missed, or in increased efficiency in teaching some element of literary art. We may decide that it?s worth the sacrifice, but we shouldn?t let the assignment dominate the literature itself. If students? responses are too frequently or severely constrained, the students may come to see the literature only as a basis for prescribed exercises and may find themselves taking the pseudo-professional approach to their reading that Rosenblatt decried. The essential feature of response-based literature teaching is that it makes every effort to ensure that students discover their own routes into the literature. Longer Response Papers Instruction may be further varied by expanding the brief writing period. Students may be asked to write a long response, perhaps several pages, identifying and elaborating on their reactions to a work and tracing them as far back into their own history and as deeply into the text as they can. A longer response statement is, of course, more than an effort to identify starting points for discussion; it demands that students sustain their thinking alone, without the support and questioning of other students or the teacher. In a sense, it asks them to discuss the work with themselves, to reduce the dialog of the classroom to an internal monolog. More difficult than the ten-minute response, it nonetheless has the virtue of allowing students the opportunity for uninterrupted reflection, at length, on their own perceptions. They need not suspend their thoughts to consider those of their classmates, or compete for the time to voice opinions; they can follow their own thoughts wherever they lead. As is the case with shorter writing assignments, you may constrain long response papers in some way if it seems desirable. In fact, constraint may be of more value to the students in longer papers than in the shorter response statements since it helps sustain and focus their thoughts. Responses longer than a page or two, however, may be difficult for students not yet used to the technique and aware of what to expect. The self-reliance demanded by a longer paper will quickly drain those unpracticed in pursuing their own thoughts, so it may be wise to begin with very brief writing assignments and only gradually ask for more extensive statements. You can also assign response papers so that only limited direction is given. Richard Adler proposes a technique that he calls ?answering the unanswered question. ? Observing that ?[f ]or too long we have tended to ask students questions, bypassing their questions,?Adler suggests inviting students to identify the unanswered questions in a work of literature and propose answers to them. He points out: As readers, all of us have found gaps in stories wherein we wish the author had supplied us with more information. For example, if we read in a story that a character did something after discussing a situation with a friend, we wonder what the dialogue between them might have included, or how the two persons conducted that dialogue. 3 The student seeking the question or questions that remain, for her, unanswered, or at least not explicitly answered, will look closely at the text and at herself. The assignment does not neglect the student or declare her to be irrelevant, but forces her to ask herself,?What is it that I do not understand in this work?? The question is general enough to allow the student?s individuality to surface, and yet may inspire a bit more confidence and sense of direction than the instruction simply to respond. Assignments like Adler?s may help make longer response papers more palatable to the class. David Bleich, in Readings and Feelings, offers several more strategies for eliciting responses from students. He proposes a sequence that ?begins by asking for the most important word in the work, then the most important passage, and then the most important feature, whatever it may turn out to be. ?4 As one might predict, Bleich asserts that it is ?immediately clear that each person has a different sense of what ?importance? means. ?5 Those different notions of importance indicate unique readings of the work. The statements made are often specific enough to discuss intelligently, and the very presence of the word ?importance? seems to compel people to offer reasons. ?This word is the most important because. . . . ? What follows the ?because? is the substance of the discussion. You might plan one or more class sessions around Bleich?s sequence. The discussion might, for instance, be divided into three sections. First, you would ask students to read the work and answer the question ?What is the most important word in the text and why?? After giving them several minutes to reflect on the question and jot down brief notes, you could call on several students for their comments, and use them to begin a discussion. If the resulting talk seems energetic and productive, it can be pursued. It might be exhaustive enough that no further impetus is necessary. On the other hand, if talk begins to fade, you may revive it by means of the next question, ?What is the most important passage in the text, and why?? Again, several minutes of reflection and writing might precede the discussion, which may in turn be interrupted for the third question, asking for the most important feature of the work. The technique, like Adler?s, provides a task, thus giving direction and purpose to the students? thinking, but the questions are sufficiently open to allow students their own responses. The shifts in focus, although minor, may be enough to refresh a discussion and reawaken the flow of ideas. The technique is a compromise between freedom and control, directing the students but encouraging them to look inside themselves as well. Like the brief written response, Bleich?s teaching pattern may be varied in several ways. For instance, you might vary the length of time for reflection. At one extreme, you may wish to raise the question as soon as reading is completed and encourage the students to respond with their first thoughts. The spur-of-the-moment choice of most important word might be different from the choices they would make if given a leisurely period for contemplation. That rash choice may lead them to a surprising discovery. Or students may reject their choice after they have had several minutes to think, and thus learn something about the difference between instinct and thought. At the other extreme, you might ask students to prepare threeto five-page papers answering one of the three questions. These longer papers, explaining the student?s choice of most important word, passage, or aspect, require the student to look at both the text and himself and examine the transaction that has taken place between the two. The assignment allows the student a fair amount of latitude. His choice may spring from his own concern with a particular issue, conceivably one of minor importance to the author, or it may be an exercise in close textual analysis, an effort to identify a key to the writer?s intentions. Ideally, a student will encounter a diverse enough collection of literary works during his years in school that his papers will fall at both ends of the spectrum, some dominated by an interest in self-understanding and some by a fascination for the workings of the writer?s mind. The virtue of teaching literature with attention to student responses is that it allows this latitude; the challenge for the teacher lies in the difficult judgments such teaching demands, for he must look for patterns in the students? responses and encourage them to try new things, not cling to one approach or the other. Dealing with Longer Response Papers Both the spontaneous, unconsidered choice and the fully developed paper can promote the exchange of ideas within the classroom. Discussion after long written response, however, may be somewhat more difficult to manage than that following brief periods of writing. Those hastier responses are fragments or kernels of thought, and are fairly easy to handle. The longer statements, on the other hand, are likely to be not fragments of ideas but full logical chains. They are more difficult to discuss because they are more complicated, because they are themselves ?works,? or literary essays. You might respond to them in several ways. One way, of course, is to reply in private, either in conference or through notes returned with the papers. Both are time-consuming. Notes, because they are easily ignored, are of questionable value, although they are traditional and students may feel neglected if nothing is written on their papers. A brief note is probably a good idea, if only to reassure students that their efforts have been given a serious reading. Too often, however, students come to view papers as exercises in avoiding errors or predicting the teacher?s views, perhaps as a result of too many futile lessons on grammar and usage or too many comprehension questions in basal readers. When comments on papers consist of little more than approbation or correction, students come to see them not as part of a dialog about their writing progress, but as a final, authoritative judgment of their work. This misapprehension is reinforced by the absurdity of grading; if there is both a grade and a comment written on the paper, most students will look first, and perhaps last, at the grade. And the comments, regardless of their content or motivation, are likely to be taken as judgments or corrections. Teachers who wish to participate with students in thinking about the literature may have to shake them loose from some of their preconceptions about the teacher?s role, and that may be easier in short private conferences than in lengthy notes on the students? essays. CONFERENCES Conferences allow the teacher to speculate with the student, and to make remarks that in writing would require careful phrasing too time-consuming to undertake regularly. You might, for instance, think that a student?s response is facile and evasive, skirting a difficult issue in the literature. To explain this might require a lengthy analysis of the student?s paper, carefully worded to find the right tone. Such a comment might more easily be made orally, where your tone and bearing can demonstrate that you hope to understand, not accuse, to help the student think, not tell her what to think. In conference, you can observe the effect of your remarks on the student and can adjust and correct. In these conferences teachers might strive for several goals. The first is a sense of shared purpose with the student, as people working together for a better understanding of the literature and of themselves. We should neither represent ourselves as absolute authority on the literature nor deny the sharpened insight that broader experience and fuller knowledge will have given us. On the other hand, students too have a rich background of experience that provides the context for their reading and shapes their response. In a conference, we have to demonstrate respect for both the perceptions of the student and the words of the text. We must convey somehow that we are not the final authority, the one who decides what the text means; meaning is created by the individual reader through the subtle process of reasoning about one?s own responses to the words. The conference is a cooperative venture in which student and teacher reason together. The student contributes what he knows of himself and his responses, while the teacher contributes what she knows of the work, the process of reading, and the student. Again, as with all aspects of instruction in literature, a delicate balance is required. A second goal for the conferences, and one that might be made explicit, is to model in miniature the kinds of exchanges hoped for in the full class. First of all, the talk is cooperative rather than competitive; the point is to understand, not to win arguments. Students should learn to suspend their own thoughts momentarily for the purpose of listening to another?s. They should maintain respect for differing points of view, but also for reason, logic, and evidence. And they should consider both the reader and the text. These criteria are more easily met in discussions with two or three than in a group of thirty. If they can be modeled, even occasionally, in the smaller groups, then they are more likely to be met in the large group. A third goal is to evaluate the student?s work. The seriousness of the student?s efforts to understand the literature and deal rationally with her responses to it may be more readily judged in a private conference than in the aftermath of full class sessions. Furthermore, the student herself will be involved in the evaluation. She is, after all, the only one who can know with any assurance whether she is thinking conscientiously about her reading. Others, including the teacher, are too easily fooled. The final judgments upon her work are the student?s; if she is to continue to learn from her reading in the years after school, she must begin to assume responsibility for those evaluations rather than leave them in the hands of others. In private conferences the teacher may be frank, asking more penetrating questions, encouraging the student to take responsibility for self-examination. GROUP DISCUSSION Dealing with long written responses in groups and in the full class, although it will be made easier by conferences, remains a difficult task. Patterns similar to those used with the very brief writing periods are possible, but the work is complicated by the greater length of the papers. One alternative is to provide an outline for the discussions, divide the class into the appropriate size groups, and ask them to follow it. For instance, students may be paired and given a set of instructions like the following: 1. Read your partner?s paper, taking careful notes on: any questions you have about his or her ideas any points you think need to be explained more completely any disagreement you have with his or her interpretation of the text 2. Discuss your notes with the author of the paper, encouraging him or her to elaborate and explain as much as he or she wishes. Keep in mind that your purpose is to help your partner to think, not to change his or her mind. If you disagree with points your partner has made, you might express those disagreements, but only to show her another perspective or another reading, not to persuade your partner to accept it. After discussing one paper, reverse roles. 3. When you have discussed both papers, add a paragraph or two of postscript to your own paper in which you record any additions, clarifications, or changes in your thinking that your conference has yielded. Groups may need either more or less guidance than this brief outline provides. For example, they may need time limits for each step. The purpose of the outline is simply to provide security and direction for students who may not feel comfortable finding their own way through a discussion of one another?s papers. Ideally, the time will come when you can discard such outlines and give students the freedom of the open request, ?Discuss each other?s papers. ? That time may not come quickly, however, and shallow, perfunctory efforts to discuss one another?s works may be discouraging in the meantime. VARIATIONS Other patterns for discussing longer responses are worth experimenting with. For example, placing students in groups of three, ask students to discuss the third student?s paper. While they talk, the writer should remain silent, taking notes on the conversation. After a specified time, the writer should join the discussion to reply to points the other students made and questions they raised. In larger groups of perhaps four or five, students might read the papers written by group members; identify one major issue, question, or idea that the group seems either to share or to disagree on; and then discuss that issue. The group might then summarize its discussion for the entire class so that the class can discuss it. Even if the students? papers are not discussed directly, they can serve as a source of ideas for discussion. We can abstract interesting issues from the papers; the students, having written them, are likely to have opinions about which issues they want to discuss. It is also possible for the papers to suggest by their neglect of an issue that it might be appropriate for the discussion. For example, if all the students have commented on the events of a story but have failed to consider the motivations of the characters, you may want to give time to that issue. That is not to say that the response statements should be ignored, but neither should they be allowed to dictate the topics treated in the classroom. Having given thought to the papers, the students may be expected to discuss more intelligently whatever arises in class, whether it is drawn directly from those papers or not. Of course, the teacher may devote class sessions to analyzing the students? writing problems and accomplishments as well as to exploring the literature. Our concern in this chapter is promoting interactions among students, so we?ve concentrated on the usefulness of the response statements in stimulating thought and discussion, but they may also serve in other ways. For instance, we might display them, if that seems a desirable way to reward performance or make the students? thoughts available to one another (and if, of course, the writers are willing). Or we might compile them into a journal that we can distribute within the class, perhaps near the end of a unit, as a sampling of the students? reflections on the material. They might also serve as the basis for long papers of other kinds. If, for example, a student?s response to a work speculates about the author, you might encourage the student to undertake a research paper on that writer. Or if the response suggests other possible outcomes of a story or reminisces about characters the student has either encountered or envisioned, you might be able to persuade the student to try writing fiction of her own. If the student speculates about the intentions of the author, she might work on a critical essay, binding herself to careful analysis of the text, and perhaps undertake the study of other critical statements about the work. Other possibilities will suggest themselves as the work proceeds. At the very least, response papers will serve as a source of some insight into the students themselves. That insight might be the discouraging revelation that a student is barely comprehending, or that he is comprehending but remains unmoved by the literature, but even that may help you to reconsider your selections, teaching, or both. At best, the responses afford a privileged glance into the mind, allowing teachers to understand aspects of the student?s thought and personality that might surface in no other way. Revealing or not, the response papers should indicate clearly to the students that their feelings and thoughts are important in the classroom. These papers provide teachers with an excellent opportunity to move the writing process all the way through to publication. In recent English Methods classes, for instance, we invited responses to the Cisneros piece ?Eleven. ? The class was asked to read and reflect briefly on the story, writing for about ten minutes to catch responses to the text, any thoughts, memories, or emotions it awakens. They then divided into small groups?about four in each?to discuss those brief essays and the issues that came up. Predictably, since the story was about a classroom incident and these were students working to become teachers, there were memories of classrooms, incidents in schools, former teachers, and the like. We then pulled the whole class back together to see what the various groups had discussed. We talked for awhile, deciding that many of the responses had to do with memories of English classes. So I asked them to write again for several minutes using the following assignment: Recall an experience as a student in an English class, perhaps a very good or very bad lesson, or a particular teacher, again perhaps exceptionally good or bad, or maybe an unusual collection of students in a class or group within the class. Write briefly about it?ten or fifteen minutes?a few paragraphs to capture the rough sketch of the person or the crude outline of the event. Again, when they finished writing we went into small groups to talk. I encouraged them to read aloud what they had written, but didn?t demand it, since these were obviously going to be very rough drafts and I didn?t want to embarrass anyone. Still, I wanted them to begin sharing responses and collaborating on their work, taking a few risks if they could muster the courage. After some time in groups we came back together as a full class once again to see what had transpired, and finally, I sent them off with the assignment to expand their two short responses?the first an unmediated reaction to ?Eleven? and the second their reflection on a memory of some previous English class?into something longer and more polished. The specific assignment was the following: Take your draft and spend some time expanding it into a longer piece, polishing and revising it in the light of both the small-group and the full-group discussions. Make of this short essay whatever you want it to be. You might simply write a story or an anecdote from the classroom; you may prefer to explicitly analyze the memory, pointing out the principles of teaching that you think are revealed; or you may wish to write an essay on teaching practice. Do whatever you wish. On subsequent days students reviewed the drafts with one another, helping to revise and polish them, and then put them together in a small booklet, printing copies for each member of the class. The computer makes that easy, enabling us to combine all the essays into one file, format everything consistently, print it out in booklet form, copy, and staple. Within a week or so we were able to move from initial response to publication. The purposes for this activity were, of course, specific to the English Methods class. I wanted the students to begin their study of teaching with reflections on their own prior experiences, to see how individual responses to a work of literature? sometimes dramatically different?might lead to coherent and interesting discussion, to see how literature and composition instruction might be integrated, to show them that there might be some pleasure in publication, even on the small scale of the classroom, and to begin to develop some sort of community within a group of students who had come together for the first time. Your purposes will, of course, be different, but your design might be similar, moving back and forth among reading, writing, and talking. The Teacher?s Role: As Teacher and as Learner It may seem that this emphasis on the responses of students, whether they are visceral and ill-considered or carefully reasoned, diminishes the authority and stature of the teacher. In a sense it does, for by choosing to view reading as an act of creation rather than a search for one true meaning, the teacher relinquishes the traditional authority of the pedagogue. The abdication is not complete, however, for he has to assume a different responsibility: to counsel his students through the difficult act of thinking. The attention to students? first reactions is not meant to substitute for thought, but to precede and prepare for it. As Bleich says,?feeling precedes knowledge?;6 a student must desire to know before he will undertake the labor that results in knowing. The literature teacher encourages students to feel and then to think about what they feel in hopes that the thinking will then matter and the students will give more effort to it. If this succeeds, and the students begin to discover that the literature does raise questions that matter to them, it might become easier to encourage and demand careful thought. In so doing, the teacher may find herself talking about her own responses, lecturing about the work or the writer, or arguing with the students about their interpretations. But that isn?t out of place in a style of teaching that emphasizes student participation. If a class begins to work well, the students may accept the teacher as a participant in the same processes of responding and thinking, able to contribute as another learner. The teacher who has achieved this stature with her class may find that she slides easily back and forth between the roles of teacher and student. At one moment she may be managing the class, assuming all the responsibility and authority that implies, and at another moment she may be seated in discussion, joining the group as an equal, shown no more and no less deference than anyone else. Authority A teacher who achieves that relationship with her students has a rare opportunity to influence their thinking. Having abandoned the authority of power?the threat of grades and tests?she may retain the authority of reason. Rather than present the result of her thought, she joins in the process of thinking, giving the class the opportunity both to challenge her and to observe her. In other words, the demand that the teacher respect student responses is not a demand that she ignore her own. She should refrain from imposing her perceptions on the students, but if the class has matured enough to accept her views without holding them sacred, it will be useful to present them. They may broaden the discussion, showing the class how an older person, with more experience of the world and of books, reacts to the work. The students should receive her opinions as they would receive those of a published critic?not as the final word, but as the reflections of an experienced reader. In an untrained class that expects a great deal of telling and explaining, the teacher must move cautiously, withholding her own thoughts to give the students room for theirs. But when the class comes to understand the process of responding and building on responses, and sees that differences in readings are not only expected but desired, we may state opinions with less fear that they will be taken as the final word. In such circumstances, our responses and thoughts may even serve as models for the class?not because they are right or correct or best, but because they may demonstrate interesting lines of inquiry that the class has not discovered for itself. In one class, for instance, many students had recently watched a film entitled Death Wish, the story of a man whose wife and daughter are raped and beaten, one of them dying and the other left in a catatonic state, by housebreakers. The courts fail to convict the killers, and the hero decides to seek justice by setting himself up as a potential victim for the sort of spontaneous crime that took his family. Then, when assaulted, he summarily executes his attacker. He becomes a vigilante wandering the streets, apparently vulnerable to anyone looking for an easy victim. The students, almost without exception, heartily approved. They agreed that crimes against the defenseless were inexcusable, that the courts and the police were inefficient, that punishment for violent crime was too mild, and that the efficiency and finality of the hero?s method were laudable. He was, in their eyes, a modern day Robin Hood, a little soiled by his surroundings?his city was grimier than Sherwood Forest?and by the brutality of his method, but nonetheless a hero, defending the weak against predators. On the other hand, although I shared the students? vicarious satisfaction with the rapid and well-deserved executions of the criminals, I was not so pleased with the movie, and said so. I told the class I thought the film had exploited my natural anger at stupid and violent crimes, moving me to applaud a form of justice I really didn?t condone. Leaving justice in the hands of either victims or vigilantes was likely to lead to some terrifying abuses. The hero had made no mistakes, but would all who modeled themselves on him be so lucky? Might they not shoot someone running from the scene of a crime and then discover that she was a frightened bystander rather than the criminal? Further, the crimes the hero dealt with were all clear-cut cases of violent aggression, many of which could be stopped by violence. But if vigilante justice were approved and accepted, it might be exercised in situations of less clear and obvious crime, perhaps when someone felt deceived in a business arrangement that was not quite illegal but not completely upright. In short, I worried about the film because it seemed to promote a dangerous conception of justice by playing upon natural feelings of rage and impotence and using incidents carefully conceived to support its principles. The discussion of the film was a digression from other class work, and I wasn?t attempting to lead an analytical attack on the movie. I was simply expressing an opinion, and intended to return quickly to the work at hand. The observations, however, suggested a line of thought the students had not recognized. They had been caught up in the emotional satisfaction of vicarious revenge, but a more complicated response to the film, one that involved reflecting on the implications of its notion of justice, was also possible. The students accepted these thoughts not as the voice of authority, but as an interesting alternative to their view. Some were annoyed, apparently because my reservations about the film diminished the pleasure they could take from it, and some seemed almost chastened, perhaps by the discovery that they had neglected to consider the implications of what they felt. In any event, my reflections seemed to contribute to the students? thinking about the film, even though I had presented them directly, perhaps even didactically, without making any subtle effort to raise doubts or elicit further thought. In other words, I wasn?t trying to teach in the sense that teaching is leading students in their own thinking; nonetheless the students seemed to be learning. I had for the moment been accepted as one of the class members; my opinions were neither jotted down to be returned on the next test, nor disregarded as the irrelevancies of an academic. It was a lucky happenstance, of course; both students and teacher had seen the same film and wanted to talk about it, interested in the film and in each other?s responses. The incident may serve as a model of the sort of relationship between student and teacher toward which the procedures outlined in this chapter strive. When such a relationship is achieved, when students talk for the sake of the literature and themselves and not for the teacher or the grade, then the teacher may feel more comfortable joining in the discussion. Range of Response I have suggested several techniques for encouraging students to respond and work with their responses. It might be appropriate now to consider what kinds of responses the literature and discussions might provoke and how these will influence the course of the conversation. The range of response is, of course, infinite; each reader is unique and will react differently from day to day depending upon the circumstances. Still, the responses seem to fall into rough categories, which are useful as a crude checklist for observing what takes place in the classroom and judging how best to intervene. PERSONAL Some responses are comments about oneself. They may express feelings produced by the work read or describe incidents or individuals it called to mind. These responses may draw heavily upon the text, but they are more likely to depart from it or abandon it completely, as the reader explores memories awakened by the work. Although such responses may seem to offer little potential for teaching, the teacher might use them in several ways. You might simply encourage the student to follow his own thoughts and see where they lead. If the reading has generated enough enthusiasm and energy, this process may be very satisfying, even if it does not reflect the goals traditionally associated with literature instruction. If the student is unable to elaborate on his thoughts without assistance, the teacher might suggest exploring their connection with the work. What, she may ask, are the similarities and differences between the incident you recall and that presented in the story? Or, how does the person you remember differ from the character in the play who called her to mind? Such questions provide the student with a small task that may help him to think further. The questions may be appropriately dealt with either in class or in writing; in the classroom, however, the teacher must keep in mind her obligation to the group. Other students may or may not be interested in the comparison between a story and the memory it brings to one student. The teacher might remind the class that discussion will not do justice to all possible issues and that they should make a note of questions that interest them so that they can either consider them in private, use them as topics for future papers or journal entries, raise them again later in the class session, or talk them over in private conference with the teacher or with friends. In class, it may often be necessary to move the discussion on to other matters. Personal responses are unquestionably desirable in the literature class, but the teacher might be alert for three possible problems. One is the possibility that students will use personal digressions as a way of avoiding serious thought about the work. Responding with opinions and feelings is not the sum total of reading. Students also need to learn to analyze, to interpret, and to seek evidence for their conclusions. The second possible problem is that the classroom may become for some students an orgy of self-expression and for others an exercise in voyeurism. There are occasional students who cannot resist the temptation to bare their souls and who are likely, when invited to respond to a literary work, to embarrass the class, the teacher, and perhaps themselves with vehement outbursts or intimate revelations. The teacher needs to defend both the class and such students themselves from that sort of behavior. That is perhaps best done by gently guiding the discussion into other paths or by encouraging others to speak, but it may also be necessary to speak privately with a student who is too outspoken, both to find out why and to recommend greater discretion or restraint in the future. The third possible danger, the most subtle, is the tendency of personal comments to invite amateur psychoanalysis. Neither the class nor the teacher is qualified to analyze a student?s psyche on the basis of her response to a literary work. To do so is to become badly distracted from the task at hand, which is to deal with a literary work and the responses to it. The student?s response may be examined and analyzed, but the student should not be, except insofar as she wishes to do so herself. TOPICAL Some responses are topical, focusing on the issue raised by the literary work. A book like Go Ask Alice may encourage some students to talk about their own encounters with drugs or about friends who have run into difficulties like those Alice faced, but it may also elicit more general discussion of the issue of drugs or of parent-child relationships. Responses in which the issue is the most prominent concern may also digress widely from the text. In the discussion of Go Ask Alice, some students may bring up the hypocrisy of a generation that can devote time at a smoke-filled cocktail party to condemning marijuana, or they may lament the ineptness of the police and the courts in enforcing the drug laws. They may, in other words, have a backlog of thought on the issue that they can call forth at will, with little or no regard for the text. The teacher?s charge in that case is to direct the energy of the students to the work at hand. If students are interested in the issues raised by the text, they may be led to take an interest in the attitudes it expresses toward those issues. The teacher might encourage them to compare their opinions with those offered by characters in the story or by the author. When the responses focus on issues, the teacher is likely to have little problem getting the students to speak out?the difficulty may instead lie in persuading them to pause long enough to hear what the writer has to say. INTERPRETIVE The third form the response may take is interpretive, an effort to judge the significance of the literary work. Here the reader focuses mainly on the text, intrigued by what it says and does. Thus students may respond to Go Ask Alice by wondering,?Is that really what it is like to be addicted to drugs and run away from home?? They may be reminded of no similar person or incident, and may not previously have considered the larger issue of the availability of drugs, but the work may still capture them and make them want to understand it. Of course, students need not be indifferent to the subject to want to interpret. Those with strong opinions may seek both the opportunity to express them and the chance to hear someone else?s views. They, too, may wish to understand, as accurately and thoroughly as possible, what the writer has said. Many of those students who responded so strongly to Deathwish, although they were at first satisfied with their vicarious revenge, quickly became interested in interpreting the movie, in determining the implications of acting as the hero did and the significance of the narrow range of incidents the screenwriter had selected for his story. Skill in interpretation has been a prominent goal of most literature instruction, and although our concern with response may reduce the emphasis on this skill, interpretation remains crucially important. The responses of the reader establish a basis upon which interpretive statements may be made and judged. An interpretation is, after all, the statement of one person, and thus, although bound to the text, it is still idiosyncratic. Nonetheless, students need to distinguish between expressive and attributive statements, recognizing that a statement that attributes some characteristic to a character or a text, or infers some belief on the part of a writer, requires us to offer some evidence for its validity. When we simply express our feelings, we may assume that we are the authoritative voice on the subject, but an inference requires proof. In an expressive statement, the student is restrained only by the demands of honesty?his feelings are his own and don?t need proof or defense. An attribution or inference, however, does require demonstration. Thus, when a student says, ?The author means . . . ,? he obligates himself to a clause beginning with ?because? and containing evidence for his conclusion. Marshaling such evidence is an extremely important skill that deserves a significant place in the literature classroom. FORMAL A fourth possible topic for the response is form. Young children take great pleasure in the repetition and rhythm of nursery rhymes and other children?s poems. They seem to feel no void when the meaning remains obscure or simple, as it frequently is in children?s verse. Their pleasure derives from the formal elements?the sound, the rhythm, and perhaps the images evoked. Although adolescents seem less patient with works that lack a strong narrative line, they too respond to formal elements, whether consciously or not, when they read. The reader who speaks of the suspense in a mystery or the buildup of fear in a novel of the occult is noting effects created by careful manipulations of form. Interested students should be encouraged to discuss those elements and even analyze them if the question, ?How did the writer accomplish this effect?? arises. Such analysis should not be overemphasized. If it is, the students may see the text as something to work on rather than an experience to live through, and reading will no longer be an aesthetic experience. Rosenblatt cautions against the tendency to: hurry the student away from any personal aesthetic experience, in order to satisfy the efferent purposes of categorizing the genre, paraphrasing the ?objective? meaning or analyzing the techniques represented by the text. 7 Rushed into the scientist?s role, students are likely to bypass the literary experience: The great problem, as I see it, in many school and college literature classrooms today is that the picture?the aesthetic experience, the work?is missing, yet students are being called upon to build an analytic or critical frame for it. 8 So the talk about form should not be purely analytical. There are, of course, works that call conscious attention to their form and almost demand that it be analyzed. Henry Reed?s ?Naming of Parts? (which we?ll discuss later), with two voices, the drill sergeant?s and the bored recruit?s, sliding back and forth into one another, seems to compel the reader to look at technique. So does a work like Robert Cormier?s I Am the Cheese (1977, Dell), a young adult novel sufficiently complex and disturbing to capture the interest of the most sophisticated adult reader. Cormier?s book tells about a terrifying event in the words of a child whose mind has been disturbed by it. The story itself is intriguing, but more intriguing is the author?s skillful management of form. Readers will want to examine what he has revealed, what he has concealed, and how he manages to do both. The analysis of form in such instances can be very productive and satisfying; it comes as a natural part of the reading, answering questions that the reading inspires. But when it is imposed as an exercise, rather than to answer questions raised by the text, it can supplant rather than support the aesthetic literary experience. BROADER LITERARY CONCERNS Finally, the reader may address broader literary concerns. These include interest in biography, literary periods, the working habits of the writer, and the history of the times portrayed. Mary Renault?s novels may inspire an interest in early Greece and Rome, Poe?s short stories may stimulate curiosity about his unhappy life, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail may lead some students to read Walden and perhaps Emerson?s essays, the movie One Flew over the Cuckoo?s Nest may be compared with the book, and 2001 may arouse an interest in computers and artificial intelligence. Such interests are to be encouraged; they are the lucky events of teaching. A teacher with several good bibliographies (like Books for You and Your Reading?see the end of Chapter 5) or a helpful librarian can entice a student into a great deal of independent and valuable reading when she discovers that a literary work has awakened curiosity. Using the Catalog of Responses This list of responses, with its five crudely drawn and overlapping forms, has proved useful for some teachers in observing class discussions. They have found it helpful to note, for instance, those classes in which one form of response predominates. Some classes make little effort to do anything but interpret the works read. Raised on comprehension and interpretation questions, they seem to have allowed their capacity for emotional response or personal involvement to atrophy. In such cases the teacher may wish to encourage a more personal interchange with the text using the techniques discussed in this chapter. The list is more likely to be of help, however, in judging the performance of individual students. Students tend to stick with the response modes they are used to, fearing to venture into new territory, and the teacher should adjust his instruction accordingly, encouraging the patterns each student neglects. The range of responses is broad, and students are better off learning a whole scale rather than restricting themselves to one note. Variations One problem that may have become apparent as this chapter progressed is that many of the techniques presented here are demanding, both for teacher and students. Response papers demand concentration and careful reading, and analyzing and discussing the responses may be even more rigorous. To teach in these patterns every day, five periods a day, may well be too exhausting. You?ll find that when things go well in the classroom?when students do respond enthusiastically to the text, and the discussion is active, with most participants enjoying it and learning from it? the lessons may generate energy rather than drain it. Nonetheless, there will be days when it seems desirable to plan something simpler. Strategies will suggest themselves in the course of other lessons. If, for instance, students develop an interest in the life and times of the writer they are studying, a session or two on that topic would be appropriate. I?ve discouraged substituting such information for direct experience with the literary text, but if the direct experience sparks historical or biographical interest, there is no reason not to satisfy it. The teacher might either lecture herself or ask students to prepare lectures or short papers to deliver to the class. Both experiences can be valuable, retaining the focus on the literature but providing some respite from the more severe demands of response-based discussion. Class sessions devoted simply to quiet reading may also be beneficial. They are first of all pleasant, allowing students a small island of solitude in the middle of a day filled with other voices. They may also be used, if further justification is necessary, for private conferences, conducted quietly off to one side so as to distract as little as possible. The good results of sustained-silent-reading programs, in which everyone in the school suspends other work for a certain time each day to read, provide evidence for the virtues of this simple activity. The strategies of creative drama might also be applied in literature teaching. It may take time for the class to grow comfortable with pantomime, improvisation, and role-playing, depending on previous experience and how comfortable the students are with one another, but once used to the techniques, students may find they provide insights into the literature that are inaccessible through other approaches. Students regularly asked to read and analyze literature may become cold-blooded in their judgments, showing no empathy for the characters portrayed. Acting out a scene from the work may help these students sense the feelings of the characters more clearly than they otherwise would. For instance, pairs of students might act out the confrontation between the old woman and the social worker in ?As Best She Could.? One student would imagine the thoughts and emotions of the old woman. She could be asked, in that role, to think about such questions as: How do you feel about asking for welfare? What do you know about the welfare system? Do the conditions of your life make you confident or pessimistic? How do you feel about your daughters and about the social worker? The other student could imagine herself as the social worker: How many clients have you seen today? How have they treated you? Are you well paid for what you do? Are you compassionate and eager to help, or are you tired and bored? How often have you been deceived by welfare clients? Then the students could play out the scene. After the improvisation they would be asked what they felt and thought as they acted out the scene. Many students report feeling emotions they had not anticipated, or feeling expected emotions more strongly than they had anticipated. The social worker, for instance, may report real anger toward the client. Simulating the experience produces some of the emotions and insights the actual experience might have yielded, giving students a perspective they couldn?t attain through the more intellectual and distant process of analysis. It is one thing to say, ?Well, she might be angry at having to deal with someone without the necessary forms who seems to want all the rules bent just for her,? and quite another to shout, ?I was furious!? Students may also find through improvisation that things need not have worked out as the author arranged them. The student playing the old woman may grow so angry with the social worker that instead of walking away, she erupts in an angry tirade. Or the social worker may sympathize with the old woman and decide to bend the rules for her. If improvisations vary from the text, so much the better, for this demonstrates that the poem is the result of the author?s choices, and that other choices could have been made, revealing different values and ideas and resulting in different poems. Just as varying response statements yield discussion by showing alternative readings of a poem, so might varying improvisations reveal the alternatives from which the writer has selected. The premise of the first chapter was that students should be encouraged to experience the literary work, allowing it to stimulate images, feelings, associations, and thoughts, so that reading might be personally significant. The premise of this chapter has been that discussion will yield insight into varied readings and perspectives, and will both deepen the capacity to respond to literature and sharpen the powers of analysis. Toward that end, students should be encouraged to speak with one another about their readings and analyze them together. Chapter 4 will introduce the third element?other texts?and attempt to show how a collection of literary works can be compiled and taught so as to further broaden response and sharpen analysis. Endnotes 1. George Henry, Teaching Reading as Concept Development: Emphasis on Affective Thinking (Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 1974), p. 17. 2. Robert E. Probst, ?Dialogue with a Text,? The English Journal, Vol. 78, No. 1 (January, 1988), 32?38. 3. Richard Adler, ?Answering the Unanswered Question,? in Re-Vision: Classroom Practices inTeaching English, 1974?1975, Allen Berger and Blanche Hope Smith, Eds. (Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1974), pp. 74?75. 4. David Bleich, Readings and Feelings: An Introduction to Subjective Criticism (Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1975), p. 50. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. , p. 3. 7. Louise M. Rosenblatt, ?What Facts Does This Poem Teach You?? Language Arts, Vol. 57, No. 4 (April 1980), pp. 391?392. 8. Ibid. , pp. 393?394. How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay Reprinted with permission from Bucks County Community College The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to carefully examine and sometimes evaluate a work of literature or an aspect of a work of literature. As with any analysis, this requires you to break the subject down into its component parts. Examining the different elements of a piece of literature is not an end in itself but rather processes to help you better appreciates and understand a work of literature as a whole. For instance, an analysis of a poem might deal with the different types of images in a poem or with the relationship between the form and content of the work. If you were to analyze (discuss and explain) a play, you might analyze the relationship between a subplot and the main plot, or you might analyze the character flaw of the tragic hero by tracing how it is revealed through the acts of the play. Analyzing a short story might include identifying a particular theme (like the difficulty of making the transition from adolescence to adulthood) and showing how the writer suggests that theme through the point of view from which the story is told; or you might also explain how the main character?s attitude toward women is revealed through his dialogue and/or actions. REMEMBER: Writing is the sharpened, focused expression of thought and study. As you develop your writing skills, you will also improve your perceptions and increase your critical abilities. Writing ultimately boils down to the development of an idea. Your objective in writing a literary analysis essay is to convince the person reading your essay that you have supported the idea you are developing. Unlike ordinary conversation and classroom discussion, writing must stick with great determination to the specific point of development. This kind of writing demands tight organization and control. Therefore, your essay must have a central idea (thesis), it must have several paragraphs that grow systematically out of the central idea, and everything in it must be directly related to the central idea and must contribute to the reader?s understanding of that central idea. These three principles are listed again below: 1. Your essay must cover the topic you are writing about. 2. Your essay must have a central idea (stated in your thesis) that governs its development. 3. Your essay must be organized so that every part contributes something to the reader?s understanding of the central idea. THE ELEMENTS OF A GOOD ESSAY The Thesis Statement The thesis statement tells your reader what to expect: it is a restricted, precisely worded declarative sentence that states the purpose of your essay -- the point you are trying to make. Without a carefully conceived thesis, an essay has no chance of success. The following are thesis statements which would work for a 500-750 word literary analysis essay: Gwendolyn Brooks?s 1960 poem ?The Ballad of Rudolph Reed? demonstrates how the poet uses the conventional poetic form of the ballad to treat the unconventional poetic subject of racial intolerance. The fate of the main characters in Antigone illustrates the danger of excessive pride. The imagery in Dylan Thomas?s poem ?Fern Hill? reveals the ambiguity of our relationship with nature. PLEASE NOTE: THE BEST PLACE TO PUT YOUR THESIS STATEMENT IS AT THE END OF YOUR INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH. The Introduction The introduction to your literary analysis essay should try to arouse interest in your reader. To bring immediate focus to your subject, you may want to use a quotation, a provocative question, a personal anecdote, a startling statement, or a combination of these. You may also want to include background information relevant to your thesis and necessary for the reader to understand the position you are taking. In addition, you need to include the title of the work of literature and name of the author. The following are satisfactory introductory paragraphs which include appropriate thesis statements: A. What would you expect to be the personality of a man who has his wife sent away to a convent (or perhaps has had her murdered) because she took too much pleasure in the sunset and in a compliment paid to her by another man? It is just such a man -- a Renaissance duke -- that Robert Browning portrays in his poem ?My Last Duchess.? Through what he says about himself, through his actions, and through his interpretation of earlier incidents, the Duke reveals the arrogance, jealousy, and materialism that are his most conspicuous traits. B. The first paragraph of Alberto Alvaro Rios?s short story ?The Secret Lion? presents a twelve-year-old boy?s view of growing up -- everything changes. As the narrator tells us, when the magician pulls a tablecloth out from under a pile of dishes, children are amazed at the ?stay-the-same part,? while adults focus only on the tablecloth itself (42). Adults have the benefit of experience and know the trick will work as long as the technique is correct. When we ?grow up? we gain this experience and knowledge, but we lose our innocence and sense of wonder. In other words, the price we pay for growing up is a permanent sense of loss. This tradeoff is central to ?The Secret Lion.? The key symbols in the story reinforce its main theme: change is inevitable and always accompanied by a sense of loss. C. The setting of John Updike?s story ?A & P? is crucial to our understanding of Sammy?s decision to quit his job. Even though Sammy knows that his quitting will make life more difficult for him, he instinctively insists upon rejecting what the A & P represents in the story. When he rings up a ?No Sale? and ?saunter[s]? out of the store, Sammy leaves behind not only a job but the rigid state of mind associated with the A & P. Although Sammy is the central character in the story and we learn much about him, Updike seems to invest as much effort in describing the setting as he does Sammy. The title, after all, is not ?Youthful Rebellion? or ?Sammy Quits? but ?A & P.? In fact, the setting is the antagonist of the story and plays a role that is as important as Sammy?s. The Body of the Essay and the Importance of Topic Sentences The term regularly used for the development of the central idea of a literary analysis essay is the body. In this section you present the paragraphs (at least 3 paragraphs for a 500-750 word essay) that support your thesis statement. Good literary analysis essays contain an explanation of your ideas and evidence from the text (short story, poem, play) that supports those ideas. Textual evidence consists of summary, paraphrase, specific details, and direct quotations. Each of the paragraphs of your essay should contain a topic sentence (usually the first sentence of the paragraph) which states one of the topics associated with your thesis, combined with some assertion about how the topic will support the central idea. The purpose of the topic sentence is twofold: To tie the details of the paragraph to your thesis statement. To tie the details of the paragraph together. The substance of each of your developmental paragraphs (the body of your essay) will be the explanations, summaries, paraphrases, specific details, and direct quotations you need to support and develop the more general statement you have made in your topic sentence. The following is the first developmental paragraph after one of the introductory paragraphs (C) above: TOPIC SENTENCE EXPLANATIONS AND TEXTUAL EVIDENCE Sammy's descriptions of the A & P present a setting that is ugly, monotonous, and rigidly regulated. We can identify with the uniformity Sammy describes because we have all been in chain stores. The fluorescent light is as blandly cool as the "checkerboard green-and-cream rubber tile floor" (486). The "usual traffic in the store moves in one direction (except for the swim suited girls, who move against it), and everything is neatly organized and categorized in tidy aisles. The dehumanizing routine of this environment is suggested by Sammy's offhand references to the typical shoppers as "sheep," "house slaves," and "pigs." These regular customers seem to walk through the store in a stupor; as Sammy tells us, not even dynamite could move them out of their routine (485). This paragraph is a strong one because it is developed through the use of quotations, summary, details, and explanation to support the topic sentence. Notice how it relates back to the thesis statement. The Conclusion Your literary analysis essay should have a concluding paragraph that gives your essay a sense of completeness and lets your readers know that they have come to the end of your paper. Your concluding paragraph might restate the thesis in different words, summarize the main points you have made, or make a relevant comment about the literary work you are analyzing, but from a different perspective. Do not introduce a new topic in your conclusion. Below is the concluding paragraph from the essay already quoted above (A) about Browning's poem "My Last Duchess": If the Duke has any redeeming qualities, they fail to appear in the poem. Browning's emphasis on the Duke's traits of arrogance, jealousy, and materialism make it apparent that anyone who might have known the Duke personally would have based his opinion of him on these three personality "flaws." Ultimately, our opinion of the Duke is not a favorable one, and it is clear that Browning meant us to feel this way. The Title of Your Essay It is essential that you give your essay a title which is descriptive of the approach you are taking in your paper. Just as you did in your introductory paragraph, try to get the reader's attention. Using only the title of the literary work you are examining is unsatisfactory. The titles that follow are appropriate for the papers (A, B, C) discussed above: Robert Browning's Duke: So What's to Like? The A & P as a State of Mind "The Secret Lion": It's Hard to Grow Up Audience Consider the reader for whom you are writing your essay. Imagine you are writing for other students in your class who have about as much education as you do. They have read the assigned work just as you have, but perhaps they have not thought about it in exactly the same way as you. In other words, it is not necessary to "retell" the work of literature in any way. Rather it is your role to be the explainer or interpreter of the work -- to tell what certain elements of the work mean in relation to your central idea (thesis). When you make references to the text of the short story, poem, or play, you are doing so in order to remind your audience of something they already know. The principle emphasis of your essay is to draw conclusions and develop arguments. USING TEXTUAL EVIDENCE The skillful use of textual evidence -- summary, paraphrase, specific detail, and direct quotations -- can illustrate and support the ideas you are developing in your essay. However, textual evidence should be used judiciously and only when it directly relates to your topic. The correct and effective use of textual evidence is vital to the successful literary analysis essay. Summary If a key event or series of events in the literary work support a point you are trying to make, you may want to include a brief summary, making sure that you show the relevance of the event or events by explicitly connecting your summary to your point. Below is an effective summary (with its relevance clearly pointed out) from the essay already quoted above on "The Secret Lion" (B): The boys find the grinding ball, but later attempt to bury it (SUMMARY). Burying it is their futile attempt to make time stand still and to preserve perfection ( RELEVANCE). Paraphrase You can make use of paraphrase when you need the details of the original, but not necessarily the words of the original: paraphrase to put someone else's words into your own words. Below is an example (also from the paper on "The Secret Lion") of how to "translate" original material into part of your own paper: Original: "I was twelve and in junior high school and something happened that we didn't have a name for, but it was nonetheless like a lion, and roaring, roaring that way the biggest things do." Paraphrase: Early in the story, the narrator tells us that when he turned twelve and started junior high school, life changed in a significant way that he and his friends couldn't quite find a name for. Specific Detail Various types of details from the text lend concrete support to the development of the central idea of your literary analysis essay. These details add credibility to the point you are developing. Below is a list of some of the details which could have been used in the developmental paragraph from the paper on John Updike's short story "A & P" (see the paragraph again for which details were used and how they were used). "usual traffic" "fluorescent lights" "checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor" "electric eye" shoppers like "sheep," "houseslaves," and "pigs" neatly stacked food dynamite Using Direct Quotations Quotations can illuminate and support the ideas you are trying to develop. A judicious use of quoted material will make your points clearer and more convincing. As with all the textual evidence you use, make sure you explain how the evidence is relevant -- let the reader know what you make of the quotations you cite. Below are guidelines and examples that should help you use quotations effectively: 1. Brief quotations (four lines or fewer of prose and three lines or fewer of poetry) should be carefully introduced and integrated into the text of your paper. Put quotation marks around all briefly quoted material. Prose example: As the "manager" of the A & P, Lengel is both the guardian and enforcer of "policy." When he gives the girls "that sad Sunday-school-superintendent stare," we know we are in the presence of the A & P's version of a dreary bureaucrat who "doesn't miss much" (487). Make sure you give page numbers when necessary. Notice that in this example the page numbers are in parenthesis after the quotation marks but before the period. Poetry example: From the beginning, the Duke in Browning's poem gives the reader a sense of how possessive he really is: "That's my last Duchess on the wall, / Looking as if she were alive" (1-2). We can't help notice how, even though the Duke is talking about her portrait, his main concern is that she belongs to him. Notice that line # 1 is separated from line # 2 by a slash. Make sure you give the line numbers when necessary. 2. Lengthy quotations should be separated from the text of your paper. More than four lines of prose should be double spaced and indented ten spaces from the left margin, with the right margin the same as the rest of your paper. More than three lines of poetry should be double spaced and centered on the page. Note: do not use quotation marks to set off these longer passages because the indentation itself indicates that the material is quoted. Prose example: The first paragraph of "The Secret Lion" introduces the narrator as someone who has just entered adolescence and isn't quite sure what to make of it: I was twelve and in junior high school and something happened that we didn't have a name for, but it was there nonetheless like a lion, and roaring, roaring that way the biggest things do. Everything changed. Just that. Like the rug, the one that gets pulled -- or better, like the tablecloth those magicians pull where the stuff on the table stays the same but the gasp! from the audience makes the staying-the-same part not matter. Like that. (41-42) Make sure you give page numbers when necessary. Notice in this example that the page numbers are in parenthesis after the period of the last sentence. Poetry example: The Duke seems to object to the fact that his "last Duchess" is not discriminating enough about bestowing her affection. In the following lines from the middle of the poem, the Duke lists examples of this "fault": Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast, The drooping of the daylight in the west, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace -- all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech. (25-30) Make sure you give line numbers when necessary. 3. If any words are added to a quotation in order to explain who or what the quotation refers to, you must use brackets to distinguish your addition from the original source. Example: The literary critic John Strauss asserts that "he [Young Goodman Brown] is portrayed as self-righteous and disillusioned." Brackets are used here because there is no way of knowing who "he" is unless you add that information. Brackets are also used to change the grammatical structure of a quotation so that it fits into your sentence. Example: Strauss also argues that Hawthorne "present[s] Young Goodman Brown in an ambivalent light." Brackets are used here to add the "s" to the verb "present" because otherwise the sentence would not be grammatically correct. 4. You must use ellipsis if you omit any words from the original source you are quoting. Ellipsis can be used at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the quotation, depending on where the missing words were originally. Ellipsis is formed by either three or four periods with a space between each period. Original: "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Example (omission from beginning): This behavior ". . . makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." Ellipsis formed by three dots after the quotation marks. Example (omission from middle): This maxim claims that "Early to bed . . . makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." Ellipsis formed by three dots used in place of the words "and early to rise." Example (omission from end): He said, "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy . . . ." Ellipsis is formed by four dots before the quotation marks -- the fourth dot is really a period which ends the sentence. 5. Use a single line of spaced periods to indicate the omission of an entire line of poetry. Example: The Duke seems to object to the fact that his "last Duchess" is not discriminating enough about bestowing her affection: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The drooping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, while the white mule She rode around the terrace -- like and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech. (26-30) Punctuating Direct Quotations You will be able to punctuate quoted materials accurately if you observe the following conventions used in writing about literature: 1. When the quoted material is part of your own sentence, place periods and commas inside the quotation marks. Example: The narrator of "The Secret Lion" says that the change was "like a lion." The period is inside the quotation marks. 2. When the quoted material is part of your own sentence, but you need to include a parenthetical reference to page or line numbers, place the periods and commas after the reference. Example: The narrator of "The Secret Lion" says that the change was "like a lion" (41). The period is outside the quotation marks, after the parenthetical reference. 3. When the quoted material is part of your own sentence, punctuation marks other than periods and commas, such as question marks, are placed outside the quotation marks, unless they are part of the quoted material. Example (not part of original): Why does the narrator of "The Secret Lion" say that the change was "like a lion"? The question mark is placed after the quotation marks because it does not appear in the original -- it ends a question being asked about the story. Example (part of original): The Duke shows his indignation that the Duchess could like everyone and everything when he says, "Sir, 'twas all one!" The exclamation point is placed inside the quotation marks because it appears in the original. 4. When the original material you are quoting already has quotations marks (for instance, dialog from a short story), you must use single quotation marks within the double quotation marks. Example: Lengel tries to stop Sammy from quitting by saying, " 'Sammy, you don't want to do this to your Mom and Dad'. " THREE CONVENTIONS TO REMEMBER WHEN WRITING A LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY 1. You must give a clear, full reference to the work and author you are writing about somewhere in your introductory paragraph (see the example introductory paragraphs A, B, and C above). 2. Use the correct format for referring to the work you are discussing. The titles of short stories, poems, and essays should be placed in quotation marks; the titles of novels, plays, films, and TV shows should be either underlined or italicized: "My Last Duchess" (poem) Antigone (play) "The Secret Lion" (short story) Forest Gump (movie) Pride and Prejudice (novel) Roseanne (TV show) 3. Use the present tense when you are discussing and writing about literature -- literary works are considered to exist in the present (see all the example paragraphs throughout). CHECKLIST 1. Is the topic you have chosen to write about manageable for the length of the paper you are writing? Is it too narrow or too broad? 2. Is your title engaging? Does it suggest the approach you are taking in your paper? 3. Does your first paragraph introduce your topic, name the writer and the work, and end with your thesis statement? Will it get the reader's attention? 4. Is your thesis clear? Does it state the central idea of your paper? 5. Is your paper organized in a way that your reader will be able to follow? 6. Are your developmental paragraphs unified (everything in the paragraph relates to the topic of the paragraph) and coherent (everything in the paragraph is arranged in a logical order)? 7. Have you used transitional words where necessary within each paragraph? Are there transitions linking all the paragraphs of your essay? 8. Does your concluding paragraph provide a sense of closure? 9. Have you used technical terms correctly? 10. Have you used brief summary, paraphrase, specific details, and direct quotations? Have you explained why you are using them and how they support your central idea? 11. If you have used information from sources outside the actual work of literature (for example, books of criticism), have you documented this information properly? To provide documentation for literary papers, you need to use MLA documentation style, which can found in most English handbooks and in books on how to write research papers. 12. Have you proofread your final draft? Writing About Literature (Fiction) What this handout is about This handout describes some steps for planning and writing papers about fiction texts. For information on writing about other kinds of literature, please see the Writing Center's handouts on writing about drama and poetry explications. Demystifying the process Writing an analysis of a piece of fiction can be a mystifying process. First, literary analyses (or papers that offer an interpretation of a story) rely on the assumption that stories must mean something. How does a story mean something? Isn?t a story just an arrangement of characters and events? And if the author wanted to convey a meaning, wouldn?t he or she be much better off writing an essay just telling us what he or she meant? It?s pretty easy to see how at least some stories convey clear meanings or morals. Just think about a parable like the prodigal son or a nursery tale about "crying wolf." Stories like these are reduced down to the bare elements, giving us just enough detail to lead us to their main points, and because they are relatively easy to understand and tend to stick in our memories, they?re often used in some kinds of education. But if the meanings were always as clear as they are in parables, who would really need to write a paper analyzing them? Interpretations of fiction would not be interesting if the meanings of the stories were clear to everyone who reads them. Thankfully (or perhaps regrettably, depending on your perspective) the stories we?re asked to interpret in our classes are a good bit more complicated than most parables. They use characters, settings, and actions to illustrate issues that have no easy resolution. They show different sides of a problem, and they can raise new questions. In short, the stories we read in class have meanings that are arguable and complicated, and it?s our job to sort them out. It might seem that the stories do have specific meanings, and the instructor has already decided what those meanings are. Not true. Instructors can be pretty dazzling (or mystifying) with their interpretations, but that?s because they have a lot of practice with stories and have developed a sense of the kinds of things to look for. Even so, the most well-informed professor rarely arrives at conclusions that someone else wouldn?t disagree with. In fact, most professors are aware that their interpretations are debatable and actually love a good argument. But let?s not go to the other extreme. To say that there is no one answer is not to say that anything we decide to say about a novel or short story is valid, interesting, or valuable. Interpretations of fiction are often opinions, but not all opinions are equal. So what makes a valid and interesting opinion? A good interpretation of fiction will: avoid the obvious (in other words, it won?t argue a conclusion that most readers could reach on their own from a general knowledge of the story) support its main points with strong evidence from the story use careful reasoning to explain how that evidence relates to the main points of the interpretation. The following steps are intended as a guide through the difficult process of writing an interpretive paper that meets these criteria. Writing tends to be a highly individual task, so adapt these suggestions to fit your own habits and inclinations. Writing a paper on fiction in 9 steps 1. Become familiar with the text. There?s no substitute for a good general knowledge of your story. A good paper inevitably begins with the writer having a solid understanding of the work that he or she interprets. Being able to have the whole book, short story, or play in your head?at least in a general way?when you begin thinking through ideas will be a great help and will actually allow you to write the paper more quickly in the long run. It's even a good idea to spend some time just thinking about the story. Flip back through the book and consider what interests you about this piece of writing?what seemed strange, new, or important? 2. Explore potential topics Perhaps your instructor has given you a list of topics to choose, or perhaps you have been asked to create your own. Either way, you'll need to generate ideas to use in the paper?even with an assigned topic, you'll have to develop your own interpretation. Let's assume for now that you are choosing your own topic. After reading your story, a topic may just jump out at you, or you may have recognized a pattern or identified a problem that you?d like to think about in more detail. What is a pattern or a problem? A pattern can be the recurrence of certain kinds of imagery or events. Usually, repetition of particular aspects of a story (similar events in the plot, similar descriptions, even repetition of particular words) tends to render those elements more conspicuous. Let?s say I?m writing a paper on Mary Shelley?s novel Frankenstein. In the course of reading that book, I keep noticing the author?s use of biblical imagery: Victor Frankenstein anticipates that "a new species would bless me as its creator and source" (52) while the monster is not sure whether to consider himself as an Adam or a Satan. These details might help me interpret the way characters think about themselves and about each other, as well as allow me to infer what the author might have wanted her reader to think by using the Bible as a frame of reference. On another subject, I also notice that the book repeatedly refers to types of education. The story mentions refers to books that its characters read and the different contexts in which learning takes place. A problem, on the other hand, is something in the story that bugs you or that doesn?t seem to add up. A character might act in some way that?s unaccountable, a narrator may leave out what we think is important information (or may focus on something that seems trivial), or a narrator or character may offer an explanation that doesn?t seem to make sense to us. Not all problems lead in interesting directions, but some definitely do and even seem to be important parts of the story. In Frankenstein, Victor works day and night to achieve his goal of bringing life to the dead, but once he realizes his goal, he is immediately repulsed by his creation and runs away. Why? Is there something wrong with his creation, something wrong with his goal in the first place, or something wrong with Victor himself? The book doesn?t give us a clear answer but seems to invite us to interpret this problem. If nothing immediately strikes you as interesting or no patterns or problems jump out at you, don?t worry. Just start making a list of whatever you remember from your reading, regardless of how insignificant it may seem to you now. Consider a character?s peculiar behavior or comments, the unusual way the narrator describes an event, or the author?s placement of an action in an odd context. (Step 5 will cover some further elements of fiction that you might find useful at this stage as well.) There?s a good chance that some of these intriguing moments and oddities will relate to other points in the story, eventually revealing some kind of pattern and giving you potential topics for your paper. Also keep in mind that if you found something peculiar in the story you?re writing about, chances are good that other people will have been perplexed by these moments in the story as well and will be interested to see how you make sense of it all. It's even a good idea to test your ideas out on a friend, a classmate, or an instructor since talking about your ideas will help you develop them and push them beyond obvious interpretations of the story. And it's only by pushing those ideas that you can write a paper that raises interesting issues or problems and that offers creative interpretations related to those issues. 3. Select a topic with a lot of evidence If you?re selecting from a number of possible topics, narrow down your list by identifying how much evidence or how many specific details you could use to investigate each potential issue. Do this step just off the top of your head. Keep in mind that persuasive papers rely on ample evidence and that having a lot of details to choose from can also make your paper easier to write. It might be helpful at this point to jot down all the events or elements of the story that have some bearing on the two or three topics that seem most promising. This can give you a more visual sense of how much evidence you will have to work with on each potential topic. It?s during this activity that having a good knowledge of your story will come in handy and save you a lot of time. Don?t launch into a topic without considering all the options first because you may end up with a topic that seemed promising initially but that only leads to a dead end. 4. Write out a working thesis Based on the evidence that relates to your topic?and what you anticipate you might say about those pieces of evidence?come up with a working thesis. Don?t spend a lot of time composing this statement at this stage since it will probably change (and a changing thesis statement is a good sign that you?re starting to say more interesting and complex things on your subject). At this point in my Frankenstein project, I?ve become interested in ideas on education that seem to appear pretty regularly, and I have a general sense that aspects of Victor?s education lead to tragedy. Without considering things too deeply, I?ll just write something like "Victor Frankenstein?s tragic ambition was fueled by a faulty education." 5. Make an extended list of evidence Once you have a working topic in mind, skim back over the story and make a more comprehensive list of the details that relate to your point. For my paper about education in Frankenstein, I?ll want to take notes on what Victor Frankenstein reads at home, where he goes to school and why, what he studies at school, what others think about those studies, etc. And even though I?m primarily interested in Victor?s education, at this stage in the writing, I?m also interested in moments of education in the novel that don?t directly involve this character. These other examples might provide a context or some useful contrasts that could illuminate my evidence relating to Victor. With this goal in mind, I?ll also take notes on how the monster educates himself, what he reads, and what he learns from those he watches. As you make your notes keep track of page numbers so you can quickly find the passages in your book again and so you can easily document quoted passages when you write without having to fish back through the book. At this point, you want to include anything, anything, that might be useful, and you also want to avoid the temptation to arrive at definite conclusions about your topic. Remember that one of the qualities that makes for a good interpretation is that it avoids the obvious. You want to develop complex ideas, and the best way to do that is to keep your ideas flexible until you?ve considered the evidence carefully. A good gauge of complexity is whether you feel you understand more about your topic than you did when you began (and even just reaching a higher state of confusion is a good indicator that you?re treating your topic in a complex way). When you jot down ideas, you can focus on the observations from the narrator or things that certain characters say or do. These elements are certainly important. It might help you come up with more evidence if you also take into account some of the broader components that go into making fiction, things like plot, point of view, character, setting, and symbols. Plot is the string of events that go into the narrative. Think of this as the "who did what to whom" part of the story. Plots can be significant in themselves since chances are pretty good that some action in the story will relate to your main idea. For my paper on education in Frankenstein, I?m interested in Victor?s going to the University of Ingolstadt to realize his father?s wish that Victor attend school where he could learn about a another culture. Plots can also allow you to make connections between the story you?re interpreting and some other stories, and those connections might be useful in your interpretation. For example, the plot of Frankenstein, which involves a man who desires to bring life to the dead and creates a monster in the process, bears some similarity to the ancient Greek story of Icarus who flew too close to the sun on his wax wings. Both tell the story of a character who reaches too ambitiously after knowledge and suffers dire consequences. Your plot could also have similarities to whole groups of other stories, all having conventional or easily recognizable plots. These types of stories are often called genres. Some popular genres include the gothic, the romance, the detective story, the bildungsroman (this is just a German term for a novel that is centered around the development of its main characters), and the novel of manners (a novel that focuses on the behavior and foibles of a particular class or social group). These categories are often helpful in characterizing a piece of writing, but this approach has its limitations. Many novels don?t fit nicely into one genre, and others seem to borrow a bit from a variety of different categories. For example, given my working thesis on education, I am more interested in Victor's development than in relating Frankenstein to the gothic genre, so I might decide to treat the novel as a bildungsroman. And just to complicate matters that much more, genre can sometimes take into account not only the type of plot but the form the novelist uses to convey that plot. A story might be told in a series of letters (this is called an epistolary form), in a sequence of journal entries, or in a combination of forms (Frankenstein is actually told as a journal included within a letter). These matters of form also introduce questions of point of view, that is, who is telling the story and what do they or don?t they know. Is the tale told by an omniscient or all-knowing narrator who doesn?t interact in the events, or is it presented by one of the characters within the story? Can the reader trust that person to give an objective account, or does that narrator color the story with his or her own biases and interests? Character refers to the qualities assigned to the individual figures in the plot. Consider why the author assigns certain qualities to a character or characters and how any such qualities might relate to your topic. For example, a discussion of Victor Frankenstein?s education might take into account aspects of his character that appear to be developed (or underdeveloped) by the particular kind of education he undertakes. Victor tends to be ambitious, even compulsive about his studies, and I might be able to argue that his tendency to be extravagant leads him to devote his own education to writers who asserted grand, if questionable, conclusions. Setting is the environment in which all of the actions take place. What is the time period, the location, the time of day, the season, the weather, the type of room or building? What is the general mood, and who is present? All of these elements can reflect on the story?s events, and though the setting of a story tends to be less conspicuous than plot and character, setting still colors everything that?s said and done within its context. If Victor Frankenstein does all of his experiments in "a solitary chamber, or rather a cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a staircase" (53) we might conclude that there is something anti-social, isolated, and stale, maybe even unnatural about his project and his way of learning. Obviously, if you consider all of these elements, you?ll probably have too much evidence to fit effectively into one paper. Your goal is merely to consider each of these aspects of fiction and include only those that are most relevant to your topic and most interesting to your reader. A good interpretive paper does not need to cover all elements of the story?plot, genre, narrative form, character, and setting. In fact, a paper that did try to say something about all of these elements would be unfocused. You might find that most of your topic could be supported by a consideration of character alone. That?s fine. For my Frankenstein paper, I?m finding that my evidence largely has to do with the setting, evidence that could lead to some interesting conclusions that my reader probably hasn?t recognized on his or her own. 6. Select your evidence Once you?ve made your expanded list of evidence, decide which supporting details are the strongest. First, select the facts which bear the closest relation to your thesis statement. Second, choose the pieces of evidence you?ll be able to say the most about. Readers tend to be more dazzled with your interpretations of evidence than with a lot of quotes from the book. It would be useful to refer to Victor Frankenstein?s youthful reading in alchemy, but my reader will be more impressed by some analysis of how the writings of the alchemists?who pursued magical principles of chemistry and physics?reflect the ambition of his own goals. Select the details that will allow you to show off your own reasoning skills and allow you to help the reader see the story in a way he or she may not have seen it before. 7. Refine your thesis Now it's time to go back to your working thesis and refine it so that it reflects your new understanding of your topic. This step and the previous step (selecting evidence) are actually best done at the same time, since selecting your evidence and defining the focus of your paper depend upon each other. Don't forget to consider the scope of your project: how long is the paper supposed to be, and what can you reasonably cover in a paper of that length? In rethinking the issue of education in Frankenstein, I realize that I can narrow my topic in a number of ways: I could focus on education and culture (Victor?s education abroad), education in the sciences as opposed to the humanities (the monster reads Milton, Goethe, and Plutarch), or differences in learning environments (e.g. independent study, university study, family reading). Since I think I found some interesting evidence in the settings that I can interpret in a way that will get my reader?s attention, I?ll take this last option and refine my working thesis about Victor?s faulty education to something like this: "Victor Frankenstein?s education in unnaturally isolated environments fosters his tragic ambition." 8. Organize your evidence Once you have a clear thesis you can go back to your list of selected evidence and group all the similar details together. The ideas that tie these clusters of evidence together can then become the claims that you?ll make in your paper. As you begin thinking about what claims you can make (i.e. what kinds of conclusion you can come to) keep in mind that they should not only relate to all the evidence but also clearly support your thesis. Once you?re satisfied with the way you?ve grouped your evidence and with the way that your claims relate to your thesis, you can begin to consider the most logical way to organize each of those claims. To support my thesis about Frankenstein, I?ve decided to group my evidence chronologically. I?ll start with Victor?s education at home, then discuss his learning at the University, and finally address his own experiments. This arrangement will let me show that Victor was always prone to isolation in his education and that this tendency gets stronger as he becomes more ambitious. There are certainly other organizational options that might work better depending on the type of points I want to stress. I could organize a discussion of education by the various forms of education found in the novel (for example, education through reading, through classrooms, and through observation), by specific characters (education for Victor, the monster, and Victor's bride, Elizabeth), or by the effects of various types of education (those with harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects). 9. Interpret your evidence Avoid the temptation to load your paper with evidence from your story. Each time you use a specific reference to your story, be sure to explain the significance of that evidence in your own words. To get your readers? interest, you need to draw their attention to elements of the story that they wouldn?t necessarily notice or understand on their own. If you?re quoting passages without interpreting them, you?re not demonstrating your reasoning skills or helping the reader. In most cases, interpreting your evidence merely involves putting into your paper what is already in your head. Remember that we, as readers, are lazy?all of us. We don?t want to have to figure out a writer?s reasoning for ourselves; we want all the thinking to be done for us in the paper. General hints The previous nine steps are intended to give you a sense of the tasks usually involved in writing a good interpretive paper. What follows are just some additional hints that might help you find an interesting topic and maybe even make the process a little more enjoyable. 1. Make your thesis relevant to your readers You?ll be able to keep your readers' attention more easily if you pick a topic that relates to daily experience. Avoid writing a paper that identifies a pattern in a story but doesn?t quite explain why that pattern leads to an interesting interpretation. Identifying the biblical references in Frankenstein might provide a good start to a paper?Mary Shelley does use a lot of biblical allusions?but a good paper must also tell the reader why those references are meaningful. So what makes an interesting paper topic? Simply put, it has to address issues that we can use in our own lives. Your thesis should be able to answer the brutal question "So what?" Does your paper tell your reader something relevant about the context of the story you?re interpreting or about the human condition? Some categories, like race, gender, and social class, are dependable sources of interest. This is not to say that all good papers necessarily deal with one of these issues. My thesis on education in Frankenstein does not. But a lot of readers would probably be less interested in reading a paper that traces the instances of water imagery than in reading a paper that compares male or female stereotypes used in a story or that takes a close look at relationships between characters of different races. Again, don?t feel compelled to write on race, gender, or class. The main idea is that you ask yourself whether the topic you?ve selected connects with a major human concern, and there are a lot of options here (for example, issues that relate to economics, family dynamics, education, religion, law, politics, sexuality, history, and psychology, among others). Also, don?t assume that as long as you address one of these issues, your paper will be interesting. As mentioned in step 2, you need to address these big topics in a complex way. Doing this requires that you don?t go into a topic with a preconceived notion of what you?ll find. Be prepared to challenge your own ideas about what gender, race, or class mean in a particular text. 2. Select a topic of interest to you Though you may feel like you have to select a topic that sounds like something your instructor would be interested in, don?t overlook the fact that you?ll be more invested in your paper and probably get more out of it if you make the topic something pertinent to yourself. Pick a topic that might allow you to learn about yourself and what you find important. Of course, your topic can?t entirely be of your choosing. We?re always at the mercy of the evidence that?s available to us. For example, your interest may really be in political issues, but if you?re reading Frankenstein, you might face some difficulties in finding enough evidence to make a good paper on that kind of topic. If, on the other hand, you?re interested in ethics, philosophy, science, psychology, religion, or even geography, you?ll probably have more than enough to write about and find yourself in the good position of having to select only the best pieces of evidence. 3. Make your thesis specific The effort to be more specific almost always leads to a thesis that will get your reader?s attention, and it also separates you from the crowd as someone who challenges ideas and looks into topics more deeply. A paper about education in general in Frankenstein will probably not get my reader?s attention as much as a more specific topic about the impact of the learning environment on the main character. My readers may have already thought to some extent about ideas of education in the novel, if they have read it, but the chance that they have thought through something more specific like the educational environment is slimmer. Works consulted We consulted these works while writing the original version of this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout's topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find the latest publications on this topic. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. Mary Shelley?s Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus. New York: Signet, 1965. Barnet, Sylvan. A Short Guide to Writing About Literature. 9th ed. New York: Longman, 2003. The Basic Structure of an Academic Essay Thesis Statement Your main ?claim? for your paper - This is what you are trying to to prove. Your thesis must take a position that genuinely can be argued from more than one side. It should be factual. It should not be so broad that it cannot be adequately supported in the scope of your paper not so narrow that it cannot support a full analysis. COMMENTARY Your explanation of HOW the evidence proves your main idea, and in turn, your thesis. You must have commentary for each piece of evidence. Commentary is the hear of your paper. MAIN IDEAS / SUPPORT THESES Support reasons WHY your thesis is true. Each reason must be supportable by facts. EVIDENCE / CONCRETE DETAIL Proof that supports your main idea must be supported by convincing evidence. Acceptable evidence includes quotations, examples, statistics, or other factual information. Thesis statements: The thesis statement is the most important part of your paper. It states your purpose to your audience. In your thesis statement, you explain what your paper will prove. The form of your thesis statement will vary depending on the form of your writing. However, for most academic writing, your thesis should identify your subject and take a position on that subject. A strong thesis statement will direct the structure of the essay. The thesis should be explicitly stated somewhere in the opening paragraphs of your paper, most often as the last sentence of the introduction. Often a thesis will be one sentence, but for complex subjects, you may find it less awkward to break the thesis into two sentences. Check your thesis statement: ? Have I identified my subject? ? Is my subject narrow or broad enough for the scope of my paper? ? Have I made a truly debatable claim regarding that subject? ? Does the structure of my thesis statement give the reader an idea of the structure of my paper? Keep Revising Your Thesis Many students feel they need a "perfect" thesis before they an start writing their paper. However, you probably won't even fully understand your topic until after you've written at least one draft. Keep testing and revising your thesis as you write. Sample thesis statements: The United States government should not fund stem-cell research because such research is not ethical, cost-effective, or medically necessary. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens shows the process by which a wasted life can be redeemed. Sidney Carton, through his love for Lucie Manette, is transformed from a hopeless, bitter man into a hero whose life and death have meaning. America's use of the atomic bomb at the end of World War II was an unnecessary action that caused unprecedented civilian casualties for purely political ends. Main ideas and support theses As you develop your thesis statement, you also identify a number of main ideas or reasons why your thesis is true. Each of these reasons is called a main idea or support thesis. Your major thesis states what you will prove in your whole paper, while your support thesis states what you will prove in each paragraph or section. Each paragraph (or set of paragraphs for longer papers) is organized around one of your main ideas: ________________________________________ Sometimes your main ideas will be stated in the major thesis. The reader will expect to see these main ideas treated in this order in the writer?s paper. The United States government should not fund stem-cell research because such research is not ethical, cost effective, or medically necessary. Issues of right or wrong should come first when considering funds for stem cell research. Stem cell research is too expensive. Other methods can be used to conduct medical research ________________________________________ Sometimes the main ideas are implied by the major thesis. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens shows the process by which a wasted life can be redeemed. Sidney Carton, through his love for Lucie Manette, is transformed from a hopeless, bitter man into a hero whose life and death have meaning. Sydney Carton is a hopeless, bitter man. Sydney Carton is transformed by his love for Lucie Manette. Sydney Carton?s death redeems his wasted life. ________________________________________ Sometimes the main ideas are not directly stated in the major thesis and must be provided for the reader as the essay progresses. America?s use of the atomic bomb at the end of World War II was an unnecessary action that caused unprecedented civilian casualties for purely political ends. A conventional invasion would have cost lives, but the casualties would have been limited to combatants. A firebombing attack would have been effective, even if it cost some civilian lives. Civilian causalities from the nuclear bombing and resulting fallout were far greater than they would have been from a conventional invasion and firebombing attack combined. The United States lost the moral high ground by using nuclear weapons first. The United States used the atomic bomb not to save lives but for political and strategic reasons. Evidence and concrete detail Each of your main ideas must be supported by specific evidence, also called concrete detail. This evidence must be both factual and convincing to the reader. It should clearly connect your main idea to your thesis by proving your point. Acceptable evidence includes ? material directly quoted from literature or research ? expert opinion ? historical facts ? statistics ? specific examples ? other factual data Start collecting evidence as soon as you know what topic you are going to write about, even if you don?t have a thesis statement or specific idea for your paper yet. Ways to collect evidence include ? note cards ? sticky notes ? notes from class discussion ? notes from lab experiments ? charts or graphic organizers ? dialectical journals ? learning logs ? highlighting reading material Collecting Evidence: Using colored sticky notes, note cards, or highlighters can help keep you organized! Use a different color for each topic, and note important information as you read. Adding Evidence to Your Writing When you integrate your evidence into your paper, often you will use direct quotations, especially when writing about literature. See the sections on Parenthetical Documentation and Incorporating Quotations into your Writing for more on how to do this. Direct quotation: When Carton and Darnay first meet at the tavern, Carton tells him, ?I care for no man on this earth, and no man cares for me? (Dickens 105). Whenever you include a quotation from another source in your own writing, you must make sure that it fits grammatically into your text. The quoted material should form a complete thought when added to your sentence. It should be so smoothly integrated that it is impossible to tell where your voice leaves off and the quotation begins, were it not for the quotation marks! Check your writing by reading it aloud. Example: Before his death, Sidney Carton envisions Lucie and Darnay telling their son his ?story, with a fair and faltering voice.? He achieves redemption when he goes to meet death, saying, ?It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done? (Dickens 387). Poorly integrated evidence makes your writing choppy and your point unclear to the reader. Example: Sidney Carton achieves redemption at the end of the book. ?It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done? (Dickens 387). You may also paraphrase or put the information into your own words. Remember always to cite the original source of the information, even if you do not use a direct quotation. Paraphrase: According to Barton Bernstein, President Truman and his administration did not even pursue alternatives to dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima (288). Whether you use direct quotations or paraphrase to incorporate your evidence, you MUST avoid plagiarizing your original sources. It is considered plagiarism to ? use another writer?s exact words w/o quotation marks and a citation ? use another writer?s ideas or line of thinking w/o a citation ? use another writer?s key terminology or even sentence structure in your paraphrase, even WITH a citation Commentary Commentary refers to your explanation and interpretation of the evidence you present in your paper. Commentary tells the reader how the concrete detail connects to your main idea and proves your point. It does NOT summarize or restate the same information contained in the concrete detail. Commentary may include interpretation, analysis, argument, insight, and/or reflection. The ratio of commentary to concrete detail will vary depending on the form and purpose of your essay. Examples of Commentary on Concrete Details Concrete Detail | Commentary When Caron and Darnay first meet at the tavern, Carton tells him, ?I care for no man on this earth, and no man cares for me? (Dickens 105). Carton makes this statement as if he were excusing his rude behavior to Darnay. Carton, however, is only pretending to be polite, perhaps to amuse himself. With this seemingly off-the-cuff remark, Carton reveals a deeper cynicism and his emotional isolation. Acccording to Baron Bernstein, President Truman and his administration did not even pursue alternatives to dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima (288).Rather than attempt other, more conventional, methods such as non-nuclear bombing raids and ground force invasion, the United States pushed forward a devastating attack on essentially civilian targets. The Truman administration simply wanted to prove the power of the Allied forces to cause extreme damage to innocent civilian populations. This action was intended to prove American strength and willingness to use its power not just to the Japanese, but the USSR as well. ________________________________________ When writing commentary, you must always keep your audience and purpose in mind. Consider the following questions as you look at your evidence: ? Why is this example particularly apt or fitting? ? What does this example reveal about my topic? ? What do I want my reader to gain or understand from my use of this example? ? How does my example prove or illustrate the main idea of my paragraph? ? How does my example prove my thesis? ? How does my example relate to other examples that I have already discussed or plan to discuss later in my paper? Transitions Transitions are words that help the audience follow your train of thought. Transitions help the reader connect new information to what he or she has just read. Transition words can be used to Show location above, across, near, between, inside, below, throughout Show time after, as soon as, finally, during, then, when, next Compare also, likewise, as, similarly Contrast although, however, but, even though, yet Emphasize this reason, especially, in fact, in particular Draw conclusions as a result, finally, therefore, in conclusion, thus Add information additionally, for example, besides, moreover, also Clarify that is, in other words, for instance Lead-ins are special transitions that provide context for the reader when introducing evidence or concrete detail. A lead-in should include the essential information needed to make sense of the example that follows it. Information in a lead-in may include ? speaker?s name, title, or qualifications ? location, time, or setting of the quotation ? situation or occasion when the quotation was made Notice in the following examples how the lead-ins provide context for each quotation, but also include some of the writer?s own commentary to help the audience understand the purpose of the quotations. Later, however, when the confident Sidney Carton returns alone to his home, his alienation and unhappiness become apparent: ?Climbing into a high chamber in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears? (Dickens 211). The Stem Cell Research Foundation opposes cloning used to create children, but believes that some kinds of cloning have legitimate scientific benefits. According to their position statement, ?Reproductive cloning has been shown to be highly unsafe in animals, and we do not believe its use is acceptable in humans. However, the cloning of a patient?s cells in order to create genetically compatible stem cells, also called therapeutic cloning . . . may lead to cures for serious and often deadly diseases? (?Stem Cell Research?). Introductions An introduction is like a first impression; you want your readers to think your paper is interesting enough to be worth their time. Most people form first impressions very quickly, so it is important to catch your reader?s interest from the start with an attention-getter or creative opening: Attention-getting Openings ? A startling fact or bit of information ? A meaningful quotation ? A universal idea related to your thesis ? A rich, vivid description or image ? A fresh analogy or metaphor ? An interesting anecdote, story, or dramatic episode ? A thought-provoking question ? Beginning in the middle of the action Save the First for Last While it is important to have at least a working version of your major thesis as you start to write, you can usually save the introduction for later. That way it will introduce what you actually have written, instead of what you had intended to write. In addition, you can tie your introduction more effectively to your conclusion by writing them both at the same time. Openings to Avoid o Dictionary definitions of words your reader should know o Rhetorical questions that use the word you (?Did you know ??) o An announcement of topic (?This paper will be about ??) o Overly broad or general statements (?There are many novels, all of which have characters. Some characters are heroes, and some are not.?) o A ?book report? list of irrelevant facts (William Shakespeare lived in the Elizabethan era in England. He wrote many plays. One of these plays was Hamlet.) Once you have your reader?s attention, you should provide essential background about your topic and prepare the reader for your major thesis. A strong introduction functions as a map for the rest of the essay, previewing major ideas that you will consider in your paper. Finally, end your introduction with your major thesis. Because the major thesis sometimes sounds tacked on, make special attempts to link it to the sentence that precedes it by building on a key word or idea. Map Your Course When previewing your main topics in your introduction, make sure you list them in the order in which they appear in your paper. The introduction should serve as a map to the reader, showing where the essay is headed. Conclusions Your conclusion wraps up your argument and leaves the reader with some final thoughts. Your conclusion should stem from what you have already written. Effective conclusions, therefore, often refer back to ideas presented in a paper?s introduction. In general, your conclusion should echo your major thesis without repeating the words verbatim. However, since your paper has already proven your thesis, your conclusion should move beyond it to reflect on the significance of the ideas you just presented. It should answer the reader?s question, ?OK, I?ve read your paper, but so what?? In other words, why are your ideas important for the reader? Effective Conclusions Effective conclusions always consider the audience and purpose. Depending on your paper?s purpose, you may use one or more of the following ideas: ? Reflect on how your topic relates to larger issues (in the novel, in society, in history) ? Show how your topic affects the reader?s life ? Evaluate the concepts you have presented ? Issue a call for action on the part of your audience ? Ask questions generated by your findings ? Make predictions ? Recommend a solution ? Connect back to introduction, esp. if you used a metaphor, anecdote, or vivid image ? Give a personal statement about the topic Conclusions to Avoid ? Beginning with ?In conclusion ?? ? Restating or summarizing the main points of your paper without providing further insight into the significance of these ideas ? Bringing up a new topic not previously covered in your paper ? Adding irrelevant details (esp. just to make a paper longer) ? Preaching or lecturing to your audience ? Overstating or over-generalizing the connection to larger issues ? Sounding clichéd, hollow, or insincere ? Lapsing into the use of the pronoun you Updated 6/23/03 by D.Hogan Poway Unified School District ©February 2003Writing Papers of Literary Analysis: Some Advice for Student Writers by Seamus Cooney Key Points: ? If you are writing about poems, remember that in poetry, while the line is the most essential unit of sound, the unit of meaning is the sentence, just as in prose. ? If you are writing about fiction, remember that summary alone is worthless. Organization One excellent kind of paper presents a thesis and marshals arguments to support it, not forgetting to mention also the possible arguments against it (and to refute them, or concede to them where necessary). In general, the best shape here is a very brief opening statement of your thesis, then several carefully unified paragraphs in support, and finally a restatement, probably in fuller form, of the thesis. A thesis is a sentence that makes an argument -- says something that has to be proved or back-up. When you read or hear a good thesis statement, your reaction will be "Really?" or "How do you figure that?" or "Oh yeah? Prove it!" or "That sounds interesting -- tell me more." In short, a thesis will set up the paper and prepare the reader to consider the evidence. A paper that begins with a thesis arouses interest. Contrast the deadening flat effect of beginning with a mere factual statement. Which of the following makes you more willing to read on? Ernest Hemingway wrote many short stories, some of which are as famous as his novels. Hemingway's short stories achieve through compression and understatement emotional effects as powerful as any he achieved in his novels. Another excellent kind of paper might be called a process paper -- one in which you allow your reader to participate with you in the process of your thinking (and feeling). In this kind of paper, you might begin by saying what it is you want to look for or examine, and then lead the reader through a step by step journey of discovery -- perhaps the examination of a text piece by piece, or even (if it's short enough) line by line, or sentence by sentence. Whatever kind of paper you write, give it a helpful title. Don't call it "Final Paper" (that gives no relevant information); don't give it the name of the work you're writing about; and and avoid sweeping titles like "Wordsworth" or "Man's Place in Nature"! Aim for an unpretentious descriptive title, like "Nature Imagery in Three Poems by Modern Poets" or "Hemingway's Implied Attitude Toward Lady Brett". Adjust your title to the actual paper that gets written, just as you will need to adjust your opening paragraph. Titles and openings are, in fact, best written last. Content: what to say Never avoid saying the obvious: it's usually true. But don't spend a lot of time on it -- acknowledge its obviousness, perhaps by a word like "Clearly, ...." Then move on to something less obvious. Don't worry that something that you 've just figured out will be obvious or familiar to someone else. Even if this should be the case, it's still a pleasure for the reader to share in another person's discovery of it. A good general principle to maintain your confidence is that if you find something interesting enough to say carefully, it'll be interesting enough for your reader. An ideal paper is one in which the writer discovers something and shares his or her pleasure in the discovery with a reader. The discovery may be an interpretation of a challenging story or poem (or portion thereof), or it may just be the discovery of what you really think about something or other. ("How do I know what I think until I see what I've said," Churchill is supposed to have said.) To discover your own considered opinion or valuation of the work you're writing about is a satisfying outcome to a paper. Avoid apologizing for what you say. It goes without saying that the views and interpretations you offer are yours, doesn't it? So there's no need for such boring and weasily phrases as "It seems to me" or "In my opinion." This does not mean you must avoid the first person singular. Use it where appropriate -- remembering, however, that a paper of literary commentary is not a piece of autobiography, so that your private self should not be in the foreground. But if you were told in school not to use "I," forget that advice! The pompousness of locutions like "The present writer" is ludicrous in a student paper. The only kind of originality that matters at all is finding the source of your ideas and feelings within yourself: being true to that origin. In a class paper, it doesn't in the least matter if what you say has been said before. In any case, it's not been said in the same way, and the study of literature should surely have brought home to you that the way of saying something is part of its meaning. Use concepts and terms you've worked with (for poetry: tone, diction, imagery, paraphrase, metrics, etc.; for fiction: characterization, plot, climax, symbolism, theme, etc.). But remember it's best to use them only when they pay off, not automatically. Paraphrase, for example, should be used selectively, when a line or sentence has a tricky meaning, or a meaning you're uncertain of but want to spell out as best you can. It would be tedious to automatically paraphrase every bit of poetry you wrote about. In writing about fiction, you will find more interesting things to say if you focus on characterization rather than characters. Writing about characters too often means writing as though they were real people, speculating about what happened before or after the action of the book or story, and other imponderables like that. Characters in a work of fiction are not real people, but rather careful constructs that resemble real people. Focussing on characterization means studying how the writer presents the character -- what selection of detail is used, what mixture of direct "showing" to indirect "telling," what implied valuations are being made, and the like. While some special literary terminology is useful and economical, avoid jargon. Don't think to impress anyone by using big words where simpler words would do. Be wary, especially, of loose vague terms like "theme" or "postmodern." Rule of thumb: when you quote supporting passages from the text being discussed, never let the quotation just lie there on the page inertly; make use of it, put it to work  point to specific features or details or words in it, say what you see, what it is that makes you want to let the reader have it before him. It's no good (in a class paper) saying to yourself that the reader can surely work out the point for himself: in this context, it's up to you to do the work. After all, one of your purposes is to persuade your instructor/reader that you yourself can see. Avoid plot summary for its own sake. Whatever may have been the case in high school, in college literature courses you get no particular credit for simply having read and followed the contents of a poem or story or novel. Thus, sentences or paragraphs in which you simply recount what happens or what is said are of no value in a paper about literature. Exception: If a piece of writing is really tricky to decipher and you feel you've succeeded in doing so after some effort, it may be appropriate to lay your cards on the table. For example, "Stanza 2 is syntactically difficult. I understand it to be saying: ..." -- and give your paraphrase. Or, "What happens next in the story is obscure. From the hints given in the next section, I take it that ..." -- and say what you make out, citing the evidence. Summarizing content in order to make a point in your argument, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter and is very much an appropriate part of papers. Provided that you subordinate the summary to a critical point that you are making, you'll be okay. Compare: Hamlet then goes to talk with his mother in her bedroom or "closet" and grows more and more angry as he talks to her. Finally, he has a vision of his father's Ghost, and this restores him to some calmness. When Hamlet talks to his mother in her bedroom or "closet," his reproaches to her grow more and more angry and uncontrolled. Ironically, it's only his vision of the Ghost -- which she interprets as his madness -- that restores him to some degree of reasonableness. In the first version, the writer seems to think that his summary is sufficiently interesting to hold our attention, but it just isn't -- not for anyone who has read the play. In the second version, the bits of summary are made to serve some point of interpretation or comment. To repeat: summary should always be ofered as a way of supporting a point you are making about the story or poem. Ideally, there should be no  neutral narrative sentences about the characters or the action, such as "Ferris goes to visit his wife" or "The Duke then conducts his visitor downstairs." Instead, all such bits of summary should be in support of an interpretative point or comment: "When Ferris goes to visit his wife, he discovers that ..." or "The Duke's unpertured courtesy of manner can be heard as he invites his visitor to 'go / Together down' with him," etc. To put it another way: do not  write a paper about the characters in a story; instead write about the story itself -- its words, its shaping or organization, its high points, symbolism, etc. For more advanced students: An aspect of writing -- both poetry and prose -- that well repays attention and which will often yield valuable observations about authors' style is their syntax. For some beginning observations, click here. Style Even if you're laboring worriedly to find plausible things to say in your papers, it still might be profitable to you to examine your style and perhaps loosen it a little. Relax and speak like (in Wordsworth's pre-feminist phrase) "a man speaking to men." Of course, to speak personally should not entail garrulity. Use the first person singular as you would in natural speaking. Avoid horrors such as "the present writer"! Offer your opinions freely, where relevant, but don't apologize for them with phrases like "in my personal opinion" or "it seems to me." It goes without saying that your writing expresses you personal opinions, doesn't it? Write informally but without slang. You don't want to sound like a self-important pompous ass, but neither are you shooting the bull over a six-pack. Student writers should make some effort -- or at least be aware of the desirability of an effort -- towards achieving a more than pedestrian style. Grammatical competence is something to be assumed as present, at this level of study. But what about a spark of liveliness in the writing? Maybe the following questions will help you move in the right direction. Have you read your paper out loud, listening for awkward repetitions and try to hear if the sound flows and if the sentences sound like a college educated person? If you can, get a friend willing to listen and follow your meaning, and then keep watching his or her face for signs of bewilderment or of pleased comprehension. Have you a sentence or two in your paper that pleases you with its rhythm or construction? Take a look at your sentence structure: are they all subject + predicate constructions? Do you ever build a cumulative sentence, using participial phrases? Do you ever use a rhetorical question? Does sentence length vary? Do you have an occasional Jamesian-complex sentence? An occasional punchy fragment? What about your punctuation? How often have you had occasion to use the semicolon? Or even better, my personal favorite: the colon? Paired dashes? And what about italics for conversational emphasis? (I probably overuse italics in these notes, but do you ever use them at all?  (On the word processor, all it takes is pushing a button.) A suggestion: it might be helpful to read a page of some author whose style you admire and find congenial just before you write or revise your own work. Asked to name critics who write stylishly, I'd offer this random list: T. S. Eliot, F. R. Leavis, Mrs. Q. D. Leavis, Hugh Kenner, Guy Davenport, Jonathan Williams, Henry James, Tom Wolfe, Roland Barthes (via Richard Howard), James Baldwin, William Empson. Mechanics Be duly embarrassed if you make more than an occasional blunder such as lack of subject-verb agreement. Aim for standard educated English -- but let's all remember that educated speakers and writers make such "errors" often enough, and correctness of this kind is a secondary consideration. I won't do more than simply mention here the more common mistakes that irritate instructors, things like to/too/two; they're/their/there; alot/allot/a lot; lose/loose; lay/lie; then/than; alright/all right; and the like. Like spelling errors, these are slips almost anyone can make on occasion in a first draft. They should not survive the careful proofreading that writers who care about their writing subject each piece to. If you are in doubt about any of them, look them up in the dictionary and read the entry carefully. If necessary, write yourself a reminder note and stick it above your desk. (If you find it easier to look for help here, go a brief discussion of these common errors.) Use the past tense to talk about biographical facts or publication data but the present tense to talk about what goes on in a work of fiction or poetry. Example: "Plath's Ariel was published after her death, but the poems show many premonitions of disaster to come." For on-line help with style and mechanics, consult Elements of Style by William Strunk, perhaps the most famous style manual in English. Documentation and quoting Commonsense, adequacy to purpose, and consistency are the criteria. Use MLA or APA style as you choose. Bear in mind the purpose: to make it as easy as possible for your reader to check your accuracy and fairness in the use of your sources. This shouldn't need sayingl, but it does. If you are quoting poetry, be sure to retain the line breaks. If you're running a very short quote into your own prose, use the slash to mark the line break. If you are quoting more than a couple of lines, set them off by indenting and single spacing, and type them line for line as they appear in the source. Brief parenthetical notes are much preferred to footnotes, whenever they can satisfy the purpose. Avoid footnotes or endnotes giving nothing but a page number (Heaney 47). Place such references in parentheses following the quotation. And keep them to a sensible minimum: if you're quoting four short bits from the same source in a single paragraph of your paper, you need only give the page reference following the last one. Above all, never use a note that merely says "ibid." The reader who goes to the trouble to turn to the back of an essay only to find such an unhelpful note will feel infuriated. In longer papers about poetry, especially, I find it helpful to have the entire text of the poem you're working on included, either in its place as needed or as an appendix. It's just one more way you show consideration for your reader. Accuracy in quoting is crucially important! Change nothing from your source without showing that you're doing so -- not spelling, not capitalization, not line breaks, not paragraphing. And your quotations must fit into your own sentence in a way that makes sense. This point is important and often causes trouble. For a fuller discussion with examples, click here. If you're writing a paper which draws on research you've done ("research" nowdays simply means reading books and articles in the library!), cite your sources scrupulously but as unobtrusively as possible. Do not write like this: In the first article I read about Hemingway, the author surprised me by pointing out that Hemingway's first job was as a newspaper reporter (Jones 23). Rather, subordinate the research to the results it brought you: Hemingway's first job was as a newspaper reporter (Jones 23). Give the information directly; your note shows that you're indebted for it to the source named. Pet peeves Some errors and flaws annoy me perhaps inordinately. Anyone can make slips in subject-verb agreement or in spelling, but errors which derive from pretentiousness or from nervously "correcting" what isn't wrong (e.g. "to my brother and me") are especially apt to destroy the reader's trust in the voice coming through the writing. Common sense should tell you that ellipses have no function at the beginning of a quotation which begins in the middle of a sentence or is a mere phrase. Such a quotation is is obviously fragmentary. It is pedantic to precede and follow it with ellipses. The function of ellipses is to show you've omitted something when it wouldn't otherwise be clear you had. Distinguish between the hyphen (used to join elements of compound words; often over-used in British writing but under-used in American) and the dash (used to indicated added-on bits of sentences -- like this) and use them correctly. Paired dashes set off parenthetical elements -- bits that are less separable than parentheses might indicate -- from the main flow of your sentence. Note that the hyphen is available on the keyboard as a single keystroke, but the dash is not. It must be either typed as two hyphens (sometimes -- though this is less accepted, since it's potentially confusing -- as a single hyphen with a space before and after it) or invoked by a word-processor-specific command to produce the proper typographical effect. Speaking of effects, if you confuse the words affect and effect, you should drum into your head, "'Affect' is a verb, 'effect' is a noun!" For example: His constant talking affected the other students' ability to concentrate. The effect of his talking was to disrupt the class atmosphere. Once you've got a firm hold of that maxim, you can then go on to realize that it isn't always true, in that less frequently "affect" can be a noun and "effect" a verb. Confused? Then stick with the simple maxim. Otherwise, consult a dictionary, or consider the following sentences: He spoke like a computer, without affect of any kind. His new clothes effected a transformation in the way people thought of him. Shall and will: people who enjoy grammatical precision find the common American confusion in the use of "shall" very annoying. The solution is simple: never use shall! It's almost always a pretentious affectation, especially in student writing. I hate the following ugly usage: "If he would have told me that earlier, I would have known what to do" instead of "If he had told me ...." My distaste here may be a sign of adherence to a lost cause, since one hears the "wrong" usage everywhere nowdays. It's part of a general obsolescence of subjunctive forms. Other examples of this obsolescence, however, seem to me quite acceptable: "If he was here, I'd tell him what I thought" is (to me) an acceptable alternative to the more elegant "If he were here, I'd tell him what I thought." Misplaced main subject: compare these two beginnings. "In Hemingway's novel, The Sun Also Rises, he begins by describing ..." "In his novel,The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway begins by describing ..." The latter form is much superior, placing the author's name in the emphatic position as subject of the main clause rather than in an introductory phrase. Here's an annoying instance of an absence of commonsense in scholarly documentation: the failure, when citing a reprint, to give the date of first publication. Compare these two versions of a possible end note: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (New York: New American Library, 1961), 5. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813; rept. New York: New American Library, 1961), 5. The first version makes it sound as though the novel was first published in 1961. When the work cited is less well known than Jane Austen, this habit can be seriously misleading. Caution: Other people's pet peeves: Personally, I find it acceptable to use the plural "they / them / their" as a gender-neutral pronoun, especially after words like "everybody" and "everyone." The argument that "everyone" must be singular because it contains the word "one" is pedantic in the extreme. What counts in language is not logic but usage. Most educated people do this in speaking, and it has a long tradition of acceptance by distinguished writers. If you have a particularly fussy instructor, however, you may find this marked unacceptable. In that case, "him or her" becomes unavoidable, clumsy as it. (The unspeakable -- literally and figuratively -- "s/he" gimmickry is to be eschewed by all save writers who prefer political correctness to a graceful style.) Consult a discussion by linguists of gender neutral language and a delightful and instructive anti- pedantry page about how "Jane Austen and other famous authors violate what everyone learned in their English class". The Seven Elements of Fiction The Seven Elements of Fiction: ?The Most Dangerous Game? Setting: The setting of the story is usually found in the exposition and sets the time and place of the story. can change throughout the story and can influence the conflict. often sets the mood and is sometimes symbolic of the conflict. can be specific or general. What is the setting in ?The Most Dangerous Game??  Central Idea (Theme)  The central idea is the author?s implied  or direct comment on the subject of the story. The central idea may raise questions about human nature or the human condition, or it may attempt to answer a question.  What is the central idea of ?The Most Dangerous Game??   Character Protagonist: Central character and focus of interest  Antagonist: Person, idea, force, or general set of circumstances opposing the protagonist  The reader comes to know the characters of a story through: Their appearance. Their words, thoughts, feelings, and actions. How others react to them and what they say of them. What the narrator tells the reader. Describe the characters in ?The Most Dangerous Game? Conflict  The pattern in which the protagonist meets and resolves the conflict is called the plot.  It is made up of the exposition, hook, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution (dénouement). Map the plot to ?The Most Dangerous Game.? Internal Conflicts  Person vs. Self  External Conflicts  Person vs. Person Person vs. Nature Person vs. Society Person vs. Supernatural  What is the primary conflict in ?The Most Dangerous Game??  Are there any secondary conflicts? Point of View     Dramatic 3rd Person Omniscient    3rd Person Limited    1st Person Limited Language     Diction        Author?s word choice (denotation and connotation)    Figurative         Imagery, similes, metaphors, allusions, repetition    Symbolism Characters, actions, and objects that represent something other than their literal interpretation    Irony        Verbal, dramatic, and situational    Dialog        Words spoken between two or more characters    Syntax        Arrangement of words within the sentence Student Notes on The Seven Elements of Fiction Elements of the Short Story: Setting The setting of the story is usually found in the ____________and sets the time and place of the story. can change throughout the story and can influence the _____________. often sets the _____________ and is sometimes symbolic of the conflict. can be specific or general. What is the setting in ?The Most Dangerous Game?? Elements of the Short Story: Central Idea (Theme) The central idea is the author?s ____________or ____________comment on the subject of the story. The central idea may raise questions about ______________ or the __________________, or it may attempt to answer a question. What is the central idea of ?The Most Dangerous Game?? The central idea Is the _______________________________________ behind fiction Is a general statement about the meaning of the story Is ___________________________ limited to just these ________________________in this ___________________________(cannot be stated as a summary) Can be derived by analyzing all of the ____________________of the story to see how they work together Is the author?s ________________________________comment on the subject of the story Can attempt to raise or answer a question about human nature or the human condition How to find the central idea: Look for changes or ________________________________ in one of the elements of the story Identify how all of the elements work together What is the conflict? Who are the characters and what are their relationships? What does the setting establish or contribute? In what ___________________________________ is the story told? If first person, is the narrator the protagonist? Can he or she be trusted? What is the ______________________________of the story? What language choices does the author make? Examples of central idea: When we write about the central idea, it helps to identify what the author?s purpose was in writing it. Stories that make a comment about human nature Kate Chopin?s story ?The Story of an Hour? expresses the deep desire for freedom that some might not even recognize within themselves until they are offered a glimpse of it. Stories that make a philosophical point about life and existence In ?The Scarlet Ibis, ? Hurst implies that some people born to this world are too frail to live long in such a violent place. Hurst is also commenting on the beauty and exoticness of that fragility and how those lives should be valued, the more so because they are fleeting. Stories that have a moral or teach a lesson The moral of Aesop?s fable ?The Tortoise and Hare? is that it is better to work carefully than to quickly. Stories that are meant purely for entertainment The central theme of "The Fall of the House of Usher" is terror that arises from the complexity and multiplicity of forces that shape human destiny. Dreadful, horrifying events result not from a single, uncomplicated circumstance but from a collision and intermingling of manifold, complex circumstances. Example thesis statements incorporating the central idea When analyzing a short story for one element, sometimes restricting your analysis to one aspect of the central idea will help focus your writing. Broad Thesis Statement (Setting) The setting of ?The Most Dangerous Game? takes the reader through oceans, jungles, and a mansion in a grand adventure that explores the prey?s perspective of a hunt, particularly when the prey is human. Specific Thesis Statement (Setting and Conflict) Richard Connell?s adventure story balances the wildness of the jungle to the civility of the mansion so that in the end, Rainsford must kill General Zaroff in the mansion as man ridding the world of a horrific murderer, rather than in the jungle as a prey turning on his predator in a chance of luck, and by doing so demonstrates the underlying theme of sympathy for the prey. Avoid these pitfalls when writing about the central idea: It is a theme, not a summary. The central idea is not limited to just these characters in this place in this situation. Some interpretations will vary. Not every reader will state the central idea in exactly the same way. Do not dismiss an element of the story in order to ?force? your interpretation. Sometimes we need to tweak our wording or understanding of the central idea so that all of the elements clearly align. You may not agree with the central idea presented. We can like a story but disagree with the central idea. Do not be tempted to transform the author?s intent to what you would prefer Elements of the Short Story: Character Protagonist: Antagonist: The reader comes to know the characters of a story through: Their ___________________. Their words, ____________, feelings, and ______________. How others react to them and what they say of them. What the _______________ tells the reader. Who is the protagonist in ?The Most Dangerous Game?? Who is the Antagonist in ?The Most Dangerous Game?? A character?s personality can be revealed either directly or indirectly. Consider each of the following in a character analysis: What the ___________________ says What the ___________________ says What other characters say about him or her What the character _______________ What the character does What the character is ________________ or what he or she looks like Some character terminology: Protagonist: the major or central character in the plot Antagonist: the person, idea, force, or object that acts against the protagonist Stereotype: a character who conforms to a _____________________ already established in literature who requires very little explanation from the author (e.g. bully football player, the spinster librarian) Foil: two characters with opposing characteristics set against each other in order to emphasize the characteristics of each (for example a very smart person paired with a very dumb person) Round vs. Flat Characters A character is described as being ?round? if he or she has a multiple aspects to his or her personality much like a real person. Secondary characters, stereotypes, or underdeveloped characters are described as ?flat.? Round characters: Are complex, _______________________________ characters Play a more significant role in the story (major characters) Are rarely summarized by just one characteristic Might resemble ____________________________________________ Flat characters: Are only partially developed Are usually____________________ or supporting characters Have only those portions of the character necessary for the advancement of the story revealed Are easily ________________________ Might be a stereotype Dynamic vs. Static Characters Often in a short story, characters will experience an event or have a revelation that changes who he or she is, what he or she believes, or how he or she lives. Characters who experience such a change are described as ?dynamic,? and those who don?t change are described as ?static.? Dynamic characters: Experience something that causes them to change their way of ___________________, their patterns of ___________________, or value system Static characters: Do not experience any ________________________ throughout the story Do not learn a lesson or _________________________ as a person Maintain the same values or behaviors throughout the story Consider the characters we have encountered so far in our reading. Which are round, flat, dynamic, or static? Elements of the Short Story: Conflict The pattern in which the protagonist meets and resolves the conflict is called the plot. It is made up of the exposition, hook, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution (dénouement). Map the plot to ?The Most Dangerous Game.? Exposition What is the primary conflict in ?The Most Dangerous Game?? Are there any secondary conflicts? Elements of the Short Story: Point of View 1st Person Limited 3rd Person Limited 3rd Person Omniscient Dramatic Narration (Detached Observer) Student Essay: Exemplars The Story of an Hour By Kate Chopin Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death. It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window. She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams. She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought. There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air. Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome. There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination. And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! "Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering. Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg, open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing Louise? For heaven's sake open the door." "Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window. Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom. Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife. But Richards was too late. When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease-- of joy that kills Christalyn Grantier Prof. C. Agatucci Period 1 4 November 2002 Plot vs. Point of View in Chopin's "Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin?s ?Story of an Hour? tells the tale of an evolution of a character in a single hour. Chopin accomplishes this by using a specific point of view and unique plot to carry out her vision. These elements work together to create a theme that has the greatest impact on the reader. Ann Charters defines ?point of view? as ?the author?s choice of narrator for the story? (1009). ?The Story of an Hour? is told from the viewpoint of a third-person narrator. This speaker is a ?non-participant in the story? (Charters 1009). Never does the narrator include herself in the plot of ?Hour.? Specifically, this speaker has only ?limited omniscience? as she relates the story. According to Charters, a speaker with limited omniscience is able to know what is going on in the mind of a single character, but not have a full understanding of, or chooses not to reveal to the readers, the minds of all the characters (Charters 1009). For example, the emotions and thoughts of Mrs. Mallard are fully described within the story. We see her grief, but also the thoughts of freedom that begin to come to her mind (Chopin 157-8). Because the narrator does not show all the aspects of the story, it allows the fact of her husband being alive to be a surprise (Chopin 158). The narrator, because he or she is not a member of the story, may be able to be trusted more by the reader than a person involved directly in the story (Charters 1010). The narrator is considered more ?objective? (Agatucci 4). The author, Kate Chopin, was a great admirer of Guy de Maupassant, a writer of the realist genre (Agatucci 4). Maupassant stated that ?The writer?s goal is to reproduce this illusion of life faithfully?? (Maupassant 898). Chopin used a point of view in ?Story of an Hour? very similar to that of Maupassant when he wrote ?The Necklace.? The author?s factual account allows a reader to experience this ?illusion of life?. According to Maupassant, a writer should find a new way of looking at a situation (Charters 523). Chopin, in attempting to imitate the genre embraced by this author, looked at a situation of the death of a husband in a unique way. She accomplished this by presenting the true feelings of a widow and contrasting those feelings with society?s beliefs. Working in the realistic genre, Chopin presented a more ?disillusioned? view of life (Agatucci 4). Chopin did not portray the accepted norms of society. She did not state that the wife could not go on without her husband. By contrast, she viewed her story with a new concept, that of a wife feeling empowered to go on living because her husband was no longer alive. The thoughts and actions of these characters can be seen in the development of the plot. Point of view is how a reader is able to look into a story; the plot is the arrangement of the incidents themselves (Charter 1003, 1009). Charters defines plot as ?the sequence of events in a story and their relation to one another as they develop and usually resolve a conflict? (1003). The sequences within this story are quite short because this story occurs in the course of a single hour. The conflict present in this story is all within the protagonist, ?the main character of [the] narrative? (Charters 1051). Without the view which allows the reader to see inside the mind of Mrs. Mallard, the reader would not be aware of the true conflict. Without this insight, a reader might assume, like Mrs. Mallard?s sister, that the conflict of the wife was the grief associated with her husband?s death (Chopin 158). The point of view allows the reader to see the true conflict within the plot and to sense the freedom that is eventually embraced by the protagonist (Chopin 158). The life of the author seems to have an impact on the plot. Kate Chopin had a very similar experience as Mrs. Mallard in the tragic death of her father. Chopin?s father perished when she was young in a train accident (Chopin 157; and ?Katherine Chopin?). Also, she did not begin writing until after her mother and husband had both passed away (?Katherine Chopin?). She herself stated that ?If it were possible for my husband and my mother to come back to earth, I feel that I would unhesitatingly give up every thing that has come into my life since they left it and join my existence again with theirs. To do that, I would have to forget the past ten years of my growth -- my real growth? (O'Brien). This suggests Chopin sympathized with Mrs. Mallard, who had found new freedom in the death of a loved one (Chopin 158). Kate Chopin had a bicultural background. According to Contemporary Authors, this author?s great-grandmother related stories of her ancestors, including those about ?notorious infidels? (?Katherine Chopin?). This may have given Chopin confidence to explore topics not generally discussed by the society of her day. The plot itself has some very distinct characteristics that are of the literary realism genre. First, it is believable. Most people believe that heart disease and train accidents do exist (Chopin 157). Authors writing within this style often chose to look at the nature of human beings (Agatucci 3). The entire plot of ?Story of An Hour? is that of describing the nature of the characters. The plot begins by depicting the reaction of Mrs. Mallard?s sister and Mr. Mallard?s friend (Chopin 157). The evolution of the emotional nature of Mrs. Mallard is described as she sits alone (Chopin157-158). Finally, we see the nature of society at that time, totally ignorant of the true feelings felt by the wife about her husband. Agatucci describes this impact on characters such as Mrs. Mallard as ?ordinary people of contemporary times live it in society, caught up by social?forces? (3). The social forces of this time included, what could be referred to as society?s ?repression? of women. Seyersted describes this time period as a society in which ?a society where man makes the rules, woman is often kept in a state of tutelage and regarded as property or as a servant?. Seyersted quotes Chopin herself in saying, ?As Mme. de Stael's Corinne is told: Whatever extraordinary gifts she may have, her duty and ?her proper destiny is to devote herself to her husband and to the raising of her children?.? This type of society had a great impact on the plot of this story. The reader can better understand the situation of Mrs. Mallard. Her destiny was that of devoting herself to her husband. Even though she loved him and would weep upon seeing him dead, she welcomed the ?procession of years that would belong to her absolutely? (Chopin 158). Maureen Anderson refers to Chopin as having an ?authorial skill through which she elegantly addresses society's flaws? present in all her works. Both the point of view and the plot of ?Story of an Hour? work to create the theme of this story. Theme is ?a generalization about the meaning of a story? (Charters 1013). The theme of Chopin?s story is how ignorant society was at that time of the true feelings experienced by repressed women. First, the point of view allows us to see the inner emotions expressed by Mrs. Mallard. Without a speaker with limited omniscience, a reader would never realize what was truly being felt by the protagonist, and the theme would be lost. Because the narrator is outside the story and could be considered more objective, the reader is more likely to believe that these feelings experienced by Mrs. Mallard are true. If Mrs. Mallard or the sister had told the story, readers would have gotten two different, biased accounts. The point of view allows a reader to feel that this really could have happened, an ?illusion of life?, thereby making the theme more powerful. The plot allows Mrs. Mallard to explore her feelings of repression and finally accept the fact that she can rejoice in the freedom of being a widow (Chopin 158). The surprise ending, the return of Mr. Mallard and the death of Mrs. Mallard, gives the reader a chance to understand the ironic beliefs of society (Chopin 158). The irony can be seen in the totally contradictory feelings of the protagonist and society. Mrs. Mallard, upon seeing her husband alive, was suddenly thrown back into a situation in which she had ?thought with a shudder that life might be long? (Chopin 158). It was this great shock and grief that led to her death, not the ?joy that kills? (Chopin 158). Works Cited Agatucci, Cora. (Professor of English, Humanities Dept., Central Oregon Community College). ?Emergence of the Short Story: Literary Romanticism and Realism- Poe and Maupassant; Myth Lit. Theory?. In-Class Presentation, English 104: Introduction to Literature-Fiction, Central Oregon Community College [Bend, OR]. Fall 2002. Handout. Anderson, Maureen. ?Unraveling the Southern Pastoral Tradition: A New Look at Kate Chopin's At Fault.? Southern Literary Journal 34.1: 1-14. Rpt. Ebsco Host Academic Search Elite, 2001; Article No. 6124416. Charters, Ann. ?Appendix 3: The Elements of Fiction.? The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Compact 6th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin?s, 2003. 1003-1015. Chopin, Kate. ?The Story of an Hour?. [First published 1894.] Rpt. The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Ed. Ann Charters. Compact 6th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin?s, 2003. 157-158. ?Katherine Chopin, 1851-1904.? [New Entry: 28 Apr. 1998.] Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 2000. Rpt. Gale Literature Resource Center [Online Subscription Database]. The Gale Group, 2002. Maupassant, Guy de. ?The Writer?s Goal?. [First published 1888.] Rpt. The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Ed. Ann Charters. Compact 6th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin?s, 2003. 896-898. O'Brien, Sharon. ?Bored Wives and Jubilant Widows?. The New York Times 30 Dec. 1990, late. ed., sec. 7: 10. Rpt. Lexis-Nexis. 28 Oct. 2002. Seyersted, Per. [Excerpt from] Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography. Louisiana State University Press, 1969. 246. Rpt. World Literature Criticism Supplement, Vol.1. Gale Literature Resource Center [Online Subscription Database]. The Gale Group, 2002. © 2002, Christalyn Grantier Tonya Flowers Prof. C. Agatucci Period 1 29 October 2003 Chopin?s Artistry in ?The Story of an Hour? To be in conflict with traditional society?s beliefs is difficult for many to do; however, author Kate Chopin fights that battle to bring readers some of the most thought provoking literature that a person can get their hands on. Using to her advantage conventions of narrative stories such as character development, plot control, and irony, she is able to bring the reader into a world of emotions that society would scoff at. Kate Chopin demonstrates her incredible literary talent in ?The Story of an Hour? by interconnecting the plot and character development, with her use of thought-provoking vocabulary and narrative irony. Kate Chopin?s literary talent would have never been so strongly founded if it was not for the circumstances surrounding her life and upbringing. Her father died when she was only four years old, which left her mother and grandmother to raise, and shape her desires and ideologies (Charters 156). Having been raised primarily by strong willed feminine role models, Chopin developed a taste for more of an unconventional role for women in society. In her home town of St. Louis, she became know as the town?s ?Littlest Rebel? (Davis). She was widowed and left with six children to bring up on her own (Charters 156). This situation developed more of her strong will to write about the passion and strength that women have. Much of her writing portrays women in their relations with men, children and their own sexuality (Charters 156). Her writing is classified in the literary movement know as Realism. The Realism movement took place in the 19th century (Agatucci 4). Realism is based on everyday events, ?slice of life? stories that depict ordinary people dealing with society and its forces on living (Agatucci 3). Realistic writing is characterized with everyday events, social controversy, and protagonist/antagonist interactions (Agatucci 3). There is often and ironic undertone to Realism, as is evident in ?The Story of an Hour? (Agatucci 3). All of the characteristics of the Realism movement mentioned are active in this story. An example of Realism in ?The Story of an Hour? is evident when Mrs. Mallard?s sister reveals to her the tragic news: ?It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing (Chopin 157).? This brings out the slice of life quality of Realism because it is a display of how most people would break the news of a shocking death. Chopin enjoyed life and believed that real fiction was and is life (Chopin 861). Although she felt like a literary outcast, her frankness and honest look at women and their emotions is what makes ?The Story of an Hour? and her other works literary jewels in our society today. Chopin does a great job at integrating two of the conventions of narrative fiction, plot and character development. The plot of a story is ?the sequence of events in a story and their relation to one another as they develop and usually resolve a conflict (Charters2 1003).? Within the plot of narrative stories there is an exposition, rise to action, climax, and a fall from action. The character development is the other convention that enables Chopin to write this thought provoking story. Character is ?what stays with you after you have finished reading it. The action of the plot is performed by the characters in the story, the people who make something happen or produce an effect? (Charters2 1006). Chopin uses her character development to enhance the plot in order to bring the reader closer to the emotions of the story. In ?The Story of an Hour? both of these elements are vitally interconnected to each other. The plot itself is taking place primarily in the mind of Mrs. Mallard, which makes imperative that the reader understands her personality and where thoughts are derived from. First Mrs. Mallard is described as having heart trouble, and being a tender woman (Chopin 157). This is important to the plot because it explains why her sister took great care to break the news to her. She is also described as being ?young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength? (Chopin 157). This is a key piece of information in understanding why she grieves only momentarily. According to Webster?s Dictionary repression means: ?to prevent the natural or normal expression, activity or development of; a process by which unacceptable desires or impulses are excluded from consciousness and left to operate in the unconscious? (Webster 527). Mrs. Mallard?s marriage did not allow her to express herself through any venue of release with the exception of her unconscious. She was never allowed to be ?normal? with her emotions or, to show or use her true strength, but instead had to suppress them. One can also see that in the plot, Mrs. Mallard resists the liberation she feels at first because of her characteristic trait of being weak, and is unable or powerless to resist them (Chopin 157). As the feeling of freedom sets in her mind she begins to describe herself as a ?goddess of Victory? (Chopin 158). A goddess is a ?female of exceptional charm beauty, or grace? (Webster 294). Mrs. Mallard began, for the first time in her marriage, to feel beautiful and charming in light of her victory over the battle of wills that she had been oppressed by. In the story she gets her first chance to show off her new found strength and beauty when she lets her sister in to see the ?triumph in her eyes? (Chopin 158). The mix of character development and plot is not only evident in the case of main character, but is also found briefly in the case if Mr. Mallard. Chopin writes ?There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime?? (Chopin 158). This is the only glimpse that the reader gets into Bentley Mallard?s character; however there is much revealed through this passage. He was controlling, forcing his will on her. He was powerful (in contrast to her being powerless) and blind to the fact that he was hurting his wife. The other minor characters are left to the imagination of the reader because they do not play major roles within the plot. A fundamental characteristic of Realism is its use of irony. Chopin plays with irony to bring surprise to the climax, as well as enhance the depth of the story. Sara Davis has this to say: ?The Story of an Hour? ?turns on a series of artful modulated ironies that culminate in a somewhat contrived ending? (Davis). There are several examples of this, first off that of Brentley?s friend Richard takes the time to confirm his name with a second telegram, and then at the end of the story it turns out that he is not even involved in the accident (Chopin 157). Another example of irony is this: ?Her pulse beat fast, and then the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body? (Chopin 158). In this sentence it is ironic that it was blood, the symbolic representation of life, that was fueling her, and then at the end her life ceases. Another ironic point is made within Mrs. Mallard?s thought process: ?She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long? (Chopin 158).Her prayer was answered, and when she found out she immediately had a fatal heart attack. In addition to this irony of life and death, the reader is faced with yet another and maybe the strongest use of irony in this short story, and that is the use of the word ?joy?. It is first used in Mrs. Mallard?s thoughts as a ?monstrous joy? of being free from bondage, and tasting the elixir of life that is now so precious to her (Chopin 158). Secondly it is used by the doctors in the last line who naively state that she died ?of heart disease?of joy that kills? (Chopin 158). It is ironic that it was not joy of seeing Mr. Mallard alive that killed her, but that of the terrible loss that she would never feel the monstrous joy she had felt before. Kate Chopin did produce an excellent example of Realism literature with her use of irony in this story. Chopin does not allow her use of irony as her only tool to enhance the dynamics of ?The Story of an Hour?. She also incorporates a variety of tools such as metaphors, narrative style, and thought provoking vocabulary that bring this story to life. Mrs. Mallard is described as having heart trouble (Chopin 157). One could argue that her ?heart trouble? was not that of a physical condition, but of an emotional and psychological condition derived from such a difficult marriage. Chopin also uses a wide array of descriptive words to bring to life the feelings that Mrs. Mallard is having about the death of her husband. Examples of this are seen throughout the text: ?new spring life? ?delicious breath of air? ?blue sky showing through the clouds? ?drinking in a very elixir of life? ?summer days? etc. (Chopin 157-158). Chopin also uses the metaphor of an open window that she sits Mrs. Mallard in front of during the rise of the plot. The window is not just part of the setting, but a window into the heart and mind of the main character. It was her access to new life, new excitement, and new hopes of the coming years without Brently?s overpowering will on her. Jennifer Hicks brings out another point of narrative eloquence by stating that Chopin ?elaborates upon this when the narrator says that Mrs. Mallard ?would have no one follow her.? While the implication is that she would have no one follow her to her room, the reader wonders in hindsight whether Mrs. Mallard might have meant also that she would have no one interfere with her new life again? (Hicks). Kate Chopin used all of these tools to her advantage to bring the world a controversial look at a woman?s emotions. It took many years after this story was written for its popularity to grow into what it is today. In ?The Story of an Hour? Kate Chopin interconnects the plot, characters, irony, and narrative eloquence to produce a literary product that is arguably priceless in our society today. Fred Lewis Patte says in ?A History of American Literature? that since 1870 the strength of Chopin?s work come from ?what may be described as a native aptitude for narration amounting almost to genius? (Hicks). Readers of the future look forward to see if her ?genius? in this work will stand the test of time. Works Cited Agatucci, Cora. ?Emergence of the Short Story.? Printed 10/14/03. . Charters, Ann. ?Kate Chopin.? [header note]. The Story and its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Ed Ann Charters. Compact 6th ed. Boston: Bedford, St. Martin?s, 2003. 156. Charters, Ann. ?The Elements of Fiction.? The Story and its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Ed Ann Charters. Compact 6th ed. Boston: Bedford, St. Martin?s, 2003. 1003-1015. Chopin, Kate. ?The Story of an Hour.? [First published 1894] Rpt. The Story and its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Ed Ann Charters. Compact 6th ed. Boston: Bedford, St. Martin?s, 2003. 157-158. Chopin, Kate. ?How I stumbled upon Maupassant.? [1896]. Rpt. The Story and its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Ed Ann Charters. Compact 6th ed. Boston: Bedford, St. Martin?s, 2003. 861-862. Davis, Sara de Saussure. ?Kate Chopin, February 8, 1851-August 22, 1904.? Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 12: American Realist and Naturalist. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Ed. Donald Pizer and Earl N. Harbert. Detroit: Gale, 1982. 59-71 Rpt. Gale Literature Resource Center [online subscription database]. The Gale Group, 2002. Hicks, Jennifer. ?An Overview of ?The Story of an Hour'.? Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. Rpt. Gale Literature Resource Center [online subscription database]. The Gale Group, 2002. Webster. Webster?s Dictionary and Thesaurus Deluxe Edition. Nichols Publishing Group 2001. Imprinted of Allied Publishing Group, Inc. 294, 527 Literary Analysis & Criticism Approaches to Literary Criticism (Summary) Biographical: The author's life affects his or her work Central Biographical Questions: ? What biographical facts has the author used in the text? ? What biographical facts has the author changed? Why? ? What insights do we acquire about the author?s life by reading the text? ? How do these facts and insights increase (or diminish) our understanding of the text? ? In what ways does the author seem to consider his or her own life as "typical" or significant? Historical: Historical events help shape a work Central Historical Questions: ? What specific historical events were happening when the work was being composed? (See timelines in history or literature texts.) ? What historical events does the work deal with? ? In what ways did history affect the writer's outlook? ? In what ways did history affect the style? language? content? ? In what ways and for what reasons did the writer alter historical events? Geographical: Settings limit and define what writers can produce Central Geographical Questions: ? Which geographical features in the text are actual? ? What aspects of the geography are essential to the story? And which are nonessential? ? To what extent has the geography limited the kind of story that can happen? ? In what ways has the writer altered the geography to suit his or her purposes? Has the writer made any geographical errors? Political: Prevailing Political conditions often modify a literary work Central Political Questions: What political events are significant in the text? What political events were occurring at the time the text was written? (See timelines in history or literature texts.) What political events were occurring at the time the text was written? What political beliefs does the author seem to have? And how are those beliefs shown? What political beliefs does the author seem to dislike? How can you tell? Philosophical and Religious: The religious and ethical climate influences writers and their texts. Central Philosophical/Religious Questions: ? What religious or ethical beliefs does the text deal with directly? Are any religions or philosophies mentioned specifically in the text? ? What religious or ethical beliefs or philosophies does the author seem to favor? How can you tell? ? What religious or ethical beliefs or philosophies does the author seem to disfavor? How can you tell? ? What behaviors do the characters display that the author wants us to think are ?right?? How can you tell? ? What behavior is ?wrong?? How can you tell? Sociological/Anthropological: Social conditions and notions of the origins and cultures of humanity affect literature. Central Sociological/Anthropological Questions: ? What sort of society does the author describe? (How is it set up? What rules are there? What happens to people who break them? Who enforces the rules?) ? What does the writer seem to like or dislike about this society? ? What changes do you think the writer would like to make in the society? And how can you tell? ? What sorts of pressures does the society put on its members? How do the members respond to this pressure? Psychological: Prevailing theories of human behavior find their way into literature. Central Psychological Questions: ? Are there any specific psychologists or psychological theories mentioned in the text? In what ways? ? What theories of human behavior does the writer seem to believe? How can you tell? ? What theories of human behavior does the writer seem to reject? How can you tell? ? How do people?s minds work in the text? How do people think? How are their thoughts shown? ? In what ways do the structure and organization of the text indicate the writer?s beliefs about the workings of the mind? Introduction to Modern Literary Theory Adapted from: http://www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm Literary Trends and Influences* * Disclaimer: When theories are explained briefly, a necessary reduction in their complexity and richness occurs. The information below is meant merely as a guide or introduction to modern literary theories and trends. Critical/Theoretical Approaches: New Criticism Archetypal/Myth Criticism Psychoanalytic Criticism Marxism Postcolonialism Existentialism Phenomenology, and Hermeneutics Russian Formalism/Prague Linguistic Circle/Linguistic Criticism/Dialogism Avant-Garde/Surrealism/Dadaism Structuralism and Semiotics Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction Postmodernism New Historicism Reception and Reader-Response Theory Feminism Genre Criticism Autobiographical Theory Travel Theory Links to Other General Literary Theory Websites General Resources - Bibliography of Critical Theory Texts New Criticism A literary movement that started in the late 1920s and 1930s and originated in reaction to traditional criticism that new critics saw as largely concerned with matters extraneous to the text, e.g., with the biography or psychology of the author or the work's relationship to literary history. New Criticism proposed that a work of literary art should be regarded as autonomous, and so should not be judged by reference to considerations beyond itself. A poem consists less of a series of referential and verifiable statements about the 'real' world beyond it, than of the presentation and sophisticated organization of a set of complex experiences in a verbal form (Hawkes, pp. 150-151). Major figures of New Criticism include I. A. Richards, T. S. Eliot, Cleanth Brooks, David Daiches, William Empson, Murray Krieger, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, F. R. Leavis, Robert Penn Warren, W. K. Wimsatt, R. P. Blackmur, Rene Wellek, Ausin Warren, and Ivor Winters. Key Terms: Intentional Fallacy - equating the meaning of a poem with the author's intentions. Affective Fallacy - confusing the meaning of a text with how it makes the reader feel. A reader's emotional response to a text generally does not produce a reliable interpretation. Heresy of Paraphrase - assuming that an interpretation of a literary work could consist of a detailed summary or paraphrase. Close reading (from Bressler - see General Resources below) - "a close and detailed analysis of the text itself to arrive at an interpretation without referring to historical, authorial, or cultural concerns" (263). Further references: Brooks, Cleanth. The Well-Wrought Urn. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1947. Brooks, Cleanth and Robert Penn Warren, eds. Understanding Poetry. New York: Holt, 1938. Empson, William. Seven Types of Ambiguity. New York, 1955. Lentriccia, Frank. After the New Criticism. See chapter 6. Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. See chapter 1. Jefferson, Anne and David Robey. Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative Introduction. See chapter 3. Ransom, John Crowe. The New Criticism. New York: New Directions, 1941. Richards, I. A. Practical Criticism. London: Routledge & Paul, 1964. Wimsatt, W. K., and Monroe C. Beardsley. The Verbal Icon. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1954. Winters, Ivor. In Defense of Reason. Denver: Swallow P, 1947. See also the works of Robert D. Denham, John Fekete, and William J. Kennedy. Suggested Websites: "New Criticism Explained" by Dr. Warren Hedges (Southern Oregon University) "Definition of the New Criticism" - virtuaLit (Beford-St. Martin's Resource) Archetypal / Myth Criticism A form of criticism based largely on the works of C. G. Jung (YOONG) and Joseph Campbell (and myth itself). Some of the school's major figures include Robert Graves, Francis Fergusson, Philip Wheelwright, Leslie Fiedler, Northrop Frye, Maud Bodkin, and G. Wilson Knight. These critics view the genres and individual plot patterns of literature, including highly sophisticated and realistic works, as recurrences of certain archetypes and essential mythic formulae. Archetypes, according to Jung, are "primordial images"; the "psychic residue" of repeated types of experience in the lives of very ancient ancestors which are inherited in the "collective unconscious" of the human race and are expressed in myths, religion, dreams, and private fantasies, as well as in the works of literature (Abrams, p. 10, 112). Some common examples of archetypes include water, sun, moon, colors, circles, the Great Mother, Wise Old Man, etc. In terms of archetypal criticism, the color white might be associated with innocence or could signify death or the supernatural. Key Terms: Anima - feminine aspect - the inner feminine part of the male personality or a man's image of a woman. Animus - male aspect - an inner masculine part of the female personality or a woman's image of a man. Archetype - (from Makaryk - see General Resources below) - "a typical or recurring image, character, narrative design, theme, or other literary phenomenon that has been in literature from the beginning and regularly reappears" (508). Note - Frye sees archetypes as recurring patterns in literature; in contrast, Jung views archetypes as primal, ancient images/experience that we have inherited. Collective Unconscious - "a set of primal memories common to the human race, existing below each person's conscious mind" (Jung) Persona - the image we present to the world Shadow - darker, sometimes hidden (deliberately or unconsciously), elements of a person's psyche Further references: Bodkin, Maud. Archetypal Patterns in Poetry. London: OUP, 1934. Campbell, Joseph. Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York: Pantheon Boos, 1949. Frazer, J. G.The Golden Bough. Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism and Fables of Identity. Graves, Robert. Greek Myths and The White Goddess. Jung, Carl Gustav. Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature and various other works Knight, G. Wilson. The Wheel of Fire: Interpretations of Shakespearean Tragedy. Lentriccia, Frank. After the New Criticism. See chapter 1. Pratt, Anais. Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1982. Seboek, Thomas A., ed. Myth: A Symposium. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1955. See also the works of Derek Brewer, Shirley Lowry, June Singer, and Laurens Van der Post Suggested Websites: "Archetypal Criticism" from the Literary Encyclopedia "Mythological and Archetypal Approaches" (from Guerin et al - see General Resources below) Johns Hopkins' Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism: Archetypal Theory and Criticism "Carl Jung" - Wikipedia "Handout on Carl Gustav Jung" - Dr. Victor Daniels (Psychology Dept. - Sonoma University) Psychoanalytic Criticism The application of specific psychological principles (particularly those of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan [zhawk lawk-KAWN]) to the study of literature. Psychoanalytic criticism may focus on the writer's psyche, the study of the creative process, the study of psychological types and principles present within works of literature, or the effects of literature upon its readers (Wellek and Warren, p. 81). In addition to Freud and Lacan, major figures include Shoshona Felman, Jane Gallop, Norman Holland, George Klein, Elizabeth Wright, Frederick Hoffman, and, Simon Lesser. Key Terms: Unconscious - the irrational part of the psyche unavailable to a person's consciousness except through dissociated acts or dreams. Freud's model of the psyche: Id - completely unconscious part of the psyche that serves as a storehouse of our desires, wishes, and fears. The id houses the libido, the source of psychosexual energy. Ego - mostly to partially (<--a point of debate) conscious part of the psyche that processes experiences and operates as a referee or mediator between the id and superego. Superego - often thought of as one's "conscience"; the superego operates "like an internal censor [encouraging] moral judgments in light of social pressures" (123, Bressler - see General Resources below). Lacan's model of the psyche: Imaginary - a preverbal/verbal stage in which a child (around 6-18 months of age) begins to develop a sense of separateness from her mother as well as other people and objects; however, the child's sense of sense is still incomplete. Symbolic - the stage marking a child's entrance into language (the ability to understand and generate symbols); in contrast to the imaginary stage, largely focused on the mother, the symbolic stage shifts attention to the father who, in Lacanian theory, represents cultural norms, laws, language, and power (the symbol of power is the phallus--an arguably "gender-neutral" term). Real - an unattainable stage representing all that a person is not and does not have. Both Lacan and his critics argue whether the real order represents the period before the imaginary order when a child is completely fulfilled--without need or lack, or if the real order follows the symbolic order and represents our "perennial lack" (because we cannot return to the state of wholeness that existed before language). Further references: Elliott, Anthony. Psychoanalytic Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. See chapter 5. Ellmann, Maud, ed. Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism. London: Longman, 1994. Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Gay, Peter, ed.The Freud Reader. London: Vintage, 1995. Jefferson, Anne and David Robey. Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative Introduction. See Chapter 5. Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits: A Selection. Sarup, Madan. Jacques Lacan. London: Harvester, Wheatsheaf, 1992. Weber, Samuel. The Legend of Freud. See also the works of Harold Bloom, Shoshona Felman, Juliet Mitchell, Geoffrey Hartman, and Stuart Schniederman. Suggested Websites: "Definition of Psychoanalytic Criticism" from virtuaLit (Bedford-St.Martin's resource) "Freudian, Lacanian and Object Relations Theory" - Timothy R. Quigley "Introduction to Psychoanalysis" by Dr. Dino Felluga "The Mind and the Book: A Long Look at Psychoanalytic Criticism" by Norman N. Holland "Psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud" by Dr. Mary Klages (University of Colorado at Boulder) "Jacques Lacan" by Dr. Mary Klages (University of Colorado at Boulder) Marxism A sociological approach to literature that viewed works of literature or art as the products of historical forces that can be analyzed by looking at the material conditions in which they were formed. In Marxist ideology, what we often classify as a world view (such as the Victorian age) is actually the articulations of the dominant class. Marxism generally focuses on the clash between the dominant and repressed classes in any given age and also may encourage art to imitate what is often termed an "objective" reality. Contemporary Marxism is much broader in its focus, and views art as simultaneously reflective and autonomous to the age in which it was produced. The Frankfurt School is also associated with Marxism (Abrams, p. 178, Childers and Hentzi, pp. 175-179). Major figures include Karl Marx, Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, Raymond Williams, Louis Althusser (ALT-whos-sair), Walter Benjamin (ben-yeh-MEEN), Antonio Gramsci (GRAWM-shee), Georg Lukacs (lou-KOTCH), and Friedrich Engels, Theordor Adorno (a-DOR-no), Edward Ahern, Gilles Deleuze (DAY-looz) and Felix Guattari (GUAT-eh-ree). Key Terms (note: definitions below taken from Ann B. Dobie's text, Theory into Practice: An Introduction to Literary Criticism - see General Resources below): Commodificaion - "the attitude of valuing things not for their utility but for their power to impress others or for their resale possibilities" (92). Conspicuous consumption - "the obvious acquisition of things only for their sign value and/or exchange value" (92). Dialectical materialism - "the theory that history develops neither in a random fashion nor in a linear one but instead as struggle between contradictions that ultimately find resolution in a synthesis of the two sides. For example, class conflicts lead to new social systems" (92). Material circumstances - "the economic conditions underlying the society. To understand social events, one must have a grasp of the material circumstances and the historical situation in which they occur" (92). Reflectionism - associated with Vulgar Marxism - "a theory that the superstructure of a society mirrors its economic base and, by extension, that a text reflects the society that produced it" (92). Superstructure - "The social, political, and ideological systems and institutions--for example, the values, art, and legal processes of a society--that are generated by the base" (92). Further references: Cathouse, Louis. Lenin and Ideology. New York: Monthly Review P, 1971. Cary, Nelson, and Lawrence Gross berg, eds. Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. London: Macmillan, 1988. Bullock, Chris and David Peck. Guide to Marxist Criticism. Eagleton, Terry. Criticism and Ideology. New York: Schocken, 1978. Jay, Martin. Marxism and Totality. Berkeley: U of California P, 1935. Jameson, Fredric. Marxism and Form: Twentieth-Century Dialectical Theories of Literature. Princeton: PUP, 1971. Jefferson, Anne and David Robey. Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative Introduction. See chapter 6. Williams, Raymond. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: OUP, 1977. See also the works of Walter Benjamin, Tony Bennett, Terry Eagleton, John Frow, Georg Lukacs, Pierre Macherey, Michael Ryan, and Ronald Taylor. Suggested Websites: "Definition of Marxist Criticism" - virtuaLit (Bedford-St. Martin's resource) "Marxism" - Wikipedia Encyclopedia Marxist Theory and Criticism - from the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Criticism "Marxism and Ideology" by Dr. Mary Klages - University of Colorado at Boulder Postcolonialism Literally, postcolonialism refers to the period following the decline of colonialism, e.g., the end or lessening of domination by European empires. Although the term postcolonialism generally refers to the period after colonialism, the distinction is not always made. In its use as a critical approach, postcolonialism refers to "a collection of theoretical and critical strategies used to examine the culture (literature, politics, history, and so forth) of former colonies of the European empires, and their relation to the rest of the world" (Makaryk 155 - see General Resources below). Among the many challenges facing postcolonial writers are the attempt both to resurrect their culture and to combat preconceptions about their culture. Edward Said, for example, uses the word Orientalism to describe the discourse about the East constructed by the West. Major figures include Edward Said (sah-EED), Homi Bhabha (bah-bah), Frantz Fanon (fah-NAWN), Gayatri Spivak, Chinua Achebe (ah-CHAY-bay) , Wole Soyinka, Salman Rushdie, Jamaica Kincaid, and Buchi Emecheta. Key Terms: Alterity - "lack of identification with some part of one's personality or one's community, differentness, otherness" Diaspora (dI-ASP-er-ah- "is used (without capitalization) to refer to any people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their traditional ethnic homelands, being dispersed throughout other parts of the world, and the ensuing developments in their dispersal and culture" (Wikipedia). Eurocentrism - "the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing emphasis on European (and, generally, Western) concerns, culture and values at the expense of those of other cultures. It is an instance of ethnocentrism, perhaps especially relevant because of its alignment with current and past real power structures in the world" (Dictionary.LaborLawTalk.com) Hybridity - "an important concept in post-colonial theory, referring to the integration (or, mingling) of cultural signs and practices from the colonizing and the colonized cultures ("integration" may be too orderly a word to represent the variety of stratagems, desperate or cunning or good-willed, by which people adapt themselves to the necessities and the opportunities of more or less oppressive or invasive cultural impositions, live into alien cultural patterns through their own structures of understanding, thus producing something familiar but new). The assimilation and adaptation of cultural practices, the cross-fertilization of cultures, can be seen as positive, enriching, and dynamic, as well as as oppressive" (from Dr. John Lye - see General Literary Theory Websites below). Imperialism - "the policy of extending the control or authority over foreign entities as a means of acquisition and/or maintenance of empires, either through direct territorial control or through indirect methods of exerting control on the politics and/or economy of other countries. The term is used by some to describe the policy of a country in maintaining colonies and dominance over distant lands, regardless of whether the country calls itself an empire" (Dictionary.LaborLawTalk.com). Further references: Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, and Tiffin, Helen. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures Ashcroft, Bill. Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, eds. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Guneratne, Anthony R. The Virtual Spaces of Postcoloniality: Rushdie, Ondaatje, Naipaul, Bakhtin and the Others. Harding, Sandra and Uma Narayan, ed. Border Crossings: Multicultural and Postcolonial Feminist Challenges to Philosophy 2. Indiana University Press, 1998. Fanon, Frantz, Black Skin. White Masks. Trans. by Charles Lam Markmann. London: Pluto, 1986. Said, Edward. Orientalism. Soyinka, Wole. Myth, Literature, and the African World. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. London: Routledge, 1988. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues. Ed. Sarah Harasym. London: Routledge, 1990. Trinh, T. Minh-Ha, Woman. Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. See writings of Jamaica Kincaid, Nadine Gordimer, Wole Soyinka, R. K. Narayan, Yasunari Kawabata, Anita Desai, Frantz Fanon, Kazuo Ishiguro, Chinea Acheve, J.M. Coetzee, Anthol Fugard, Kamala Das, Tsitsi Dangarembga, etc. Suggested Websites: "Post-Colonialism" - Wikipedia Encyclopedia "Some Issues in Postcolonial Theory" by Dr. John Lye (Brock University) "Introduction to Postcolonial Studies" by Dr. Deepika Bahri (Emory University) "Postcolonialism" - handout by Dr. Aaron Kelly - University of Edinburgh Existentialism Existentialism is a philosophy (promoted especially by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus) that views each person as an isolated being who is cast into an alien universe, and conceives the world as possessing no inherent human truth, value, or meaning. A person's life, then, as it moves from the nothingness from which it came toward the nothingness where it must end, defines an existence which is both anguished and absurd (Guerin). In a world without sense, all choices are possible, a situation which Sartre viewed as human beings central dilemma: "Man [woman] is condemned to be free." In contrast to atheist existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard theorized that belief in God (given that we are provided with no proof or assurance) required a conscious choice or "leap of faith." The major figures include Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre (sart or SAR-treh), Albert Camus (kah-MUE or ka-MOO) , Simone de Beauvoir (bohv-WAHR) , Martin Buber, Karl Jaspers (YASS-pers), and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (mer-LOH pawn-TEE). Key Terms: Absurd - a term used to describe existence--a world without inherent meaning or truth. Authenticity - to make choices based on an individual code of ethics (commitment) rather than because of societal pressures. A choice made just because "it's what people do" would be considered inauthentic. "Leap of faith" - although Kierkegaard acknowledged that religion was inherently unknowable and filled with risks, faith required an act of commitment (the "leap of faith"); the commitment to Christianity would also lessen the despair of an absurd world. Further references: Barrett, William. Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy. Camus, Albert. The Stranger. Cooper, D. Existentialism, Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. Hannay, A. Kierkegaard, London: Routledge, 1982. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Tr. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling. Lentricchia, Frank. After the New Criticism. See chapter 3. Marcel, G. The Philosophy of Existentialism, New York: Citadel Press, 1968. Moran, R. Authority and Estrangement: An Essay on Self Knowledge, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Nietzsche, Fredrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Ricoeur, P. Oneself as Another. Tr. Kathleen Blamey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism and Humanism and Being and Nothingness. Taylor, C. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Suggested Websites: "Existentialism" - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy "Existentialism" - Dictionary of the History or Ideas (University of Virginia) "Existentialism" - Wikipedia "The Ethics of Absolute Freedom" by Dr. David Banach "Jean-Paul Sartre: The Humanism of Existentialism" by Dr. Bob Zunjic (University of Rhode Island) "Fredrich Nietzsche" - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Phenomenology and Hermeneutics Phenomenology Phenomenology is a philosophical method, first developed by Edmund Husserl (HUHSS-erel), that proposed "phenomenological reduction" so that everything not "immanent" to consciousness must be excluded; all realities must be treated as pure "phenomena" and this is the only absolute data from which we can begin. Husserl viewed consciousness always as intentional and that the act of consciousness, the thinking subject and the object it "intends," are inseparable. Art is not a means of securing pleasure, but a revelation of being. The work is the phenomenon by which we come to know the world (Eagleton, p. 54; Abrams, p. 133, Guerin, p. 263). Hermeneutics Hermeneutics sees interpretation as a circular process whereby valid interpretation can be achieved by a sustained, mutually qualifying interplay between our progressive sense of the whole and our retrospective understanding of its component parts. Two dominant theories that emerged from Wilhelm Dilthey's original premise were that of E. D. Hirsch who, in accord with Dilthey, felt a valid interpretation was possible by uncovering the work's authorial intent (though informed by historical and cultural determinants), and in contrast, that of Martin Heidegger (HIGH-deg-er) who argued that a reader must experience the "inner life" of a text in order to understand it at all. The reader's "being-in-the-world" or dasein is fraught with difficulties since both the reader and the text exist in a temporal and fluid state. For Heidegger or Hans Georg Gadamer (GAH-de-mer), then, a valid interpretation may become irrecoverable and will always be relative. Key Terms: Dasein - simply, "being there," or "being-in-the world" - Heidegger argued that "what is distinctive about human existence is its Dasein ('givenness'): our consciousness both projects the things of the world and at the same time is subjected to the world by the very nature of existence in the world" (Selden and Widdowson 52 - see General Resources below). Intentionality - "is at the heart of knowing. We live in meaning, and we live 'towards,' oriented to experience. Consequently there is an intentional structure in textuality and expression, in self-knowledge and in knowledge of others. This intentionality is also a distance: consciousness is not identical with its objects, but is intended consciousness" (quoted from Dr. John Lye's website - see suggested resources below). Phenomenological Reduction - a concept most frequently associated with Edmund Husserl; as explained by Terry Eagleton (see General Resources below) "To establish certainty, then, we must first of all ignore, or 'put in brackets,' anything which is beyond our immediate experience: we must reduce the external world to the contents of our consciousness alone....Everything not 'immanent' to consciousness must be rigorously excluded: all realities must be treated as pure 'phenomena,' in terms of their appearances in our mind, and this is the only absolute data from which we can begin" (55). Further references: Blanchot, Maurice. The Space of Literature. Derrida, Jacques. Speech and Phenomena, and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. New York: Crossroad, 1982. Habermas, Jürgen (JUR-gen HAH-bur-mahs). Communication and the Evolution of Society. Halliburton, David. Poetic Thinking: An Approach to Heidegger. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. Hirsch, E.D. The Aims of Interpretation. Husserl, Edmund. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Trans. David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1970. Magliola, Robert R. Phenomenology and Literature: An Introduction. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Colin Smith. London: Routledge, 1962. Palmer, Richard. Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schliermacher. Ricouer, Paul. The Conflict of Interpretation: Essays in Hermeneutics. Suggested Websites: "Phenomenology" - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Phenomenology Online - page developed by Max van Manen "Phenomenology" - Wikipedia "Phenomenology: Bracketing Experience" - by Garth Kemerling (Philosophy Pages) "Some Principles of Phenomenological Hermeneutics" by Dr. John Lye (Brock University) Russian Formalism / Prague Linguistic Circle/Linguistic Criticism/Dialogic Theory These linguistic movements began in the 1920s, were suppressed by the Soviets in the 1930s, moved to Czechoslovakia and were continued by members of the Prague Linguistic Circle (including Roman Jakobson (YAH-keb-sen), Jan Mukarovsky, and René Wellek). The Prague Linguistic Circle viewed literature as a special class of language, and rested on the assumption that there is a fundamental opposition between literary (or poetical) language and ordinary language. Formalism views the primary function of ordinary language as communicating a message, or information, by references to the world existing outside of language. In contrast, it views literary language as self-focused: its function is not to make extrinsic references, but to draw attention to its own "formal" features--that is, to interrelationships among the linguistic signs themselves. Literature is held to be subject to critical analysis by the sciences of linguistics but also by a type of linguistics different from that adapted to ordinary discourse, because its laws produce the distinctive features of literariness (Abrams, pp. 165-166). An important contribution made by Victor Schklovsky (of the Leningrad group) was to explain how language--through a period of time--tends to become "smooth, unconscious or transparent." In contrast, the work of literature is to defamiliarize language by a process of "making strange." Dialogism refers to a theory, initiated by Mikhail Bakhtin (bahk-TEEN), arguing that in a dialogic work of literature--such as in the writings of Dostoevsky--there is a "polyphonic interplay of various characters' voices ... where no worldview is given superiority over others; neither is that voice which may be identified with the author's necessarily the most engaging or persuasive of all those in the text" (Childers & Hentzi, p. 81). Key Terms: Carnival - "For Bakhtin, carnival reflected the 'lived life' of medieval and early modern peoples. In carnival, official authority and high culture were jostled 'from below' by elements of satire, parody, irony, mimicry, bodily humor, and grotesque display. This jostling from below served to keep society open, to liberate it from deadening..." (Bressler 276 - see General Resources below). Heteroglossia - "refers, first, to the way in which every instance of language use - every utterance - is embedded in a specific set of social circumstances, and second, to the way the meaning of each particular utterance is shaped and influenced by the many-layered context in which it occurs" (Sarah Willen, "Dialogism and Heteroglossia") Monologism - "having one single voice, or representing one single ideological stance or perspective, often used in opposition to the Bakhtinian dialogical. In a monological form, all the characters' voices are subordinated to the voice of the author" (Malcolm Hayward). Polyphony - "a term used by Mikhail Bakhtin to describe a dialogical text which, unlike a monological text, does not depend on the centrality of a single authoritative voice. Such a text incorporates a rich plurality and multiplicity of voices, styles, and points of view. It comprises, in Bakhtin's phrase, "a plurality of independent and unmerged voices and consciousnesses, a genuine polyphony of fully valid voices" (Henderson and Brown - Glossary of Literary Theory). Further references: Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays and Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics. Bennett, Tony. Formalism and Marxism. London, 1979. Ehrlich, Victor. Russian Formalism: History, Doctrine. Garvin, Paul L. (trans.) A Prague School Reader. Washington DC: Georgetown Academic P, 1973. Holquist, Michael. Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World. London: Routledge, 1990. Jakobson, Roman. "Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics." Ed. Sebeok, Thomas. Style in Language, pp. 350-377. Jefferson, Anne and David Robey. Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative Introduction. See chapters 1 and 2. Lemon, Lee T. and Marion J. Reese. Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays. Lodge, David. After Bakhtin: Essays on Fiction and Criticism. London: Routledge, 1990. Medvedev, P.N. and Mikhail Bakhtin. The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship: A Critical Introduction to Sociological Poetics. Mukarovsky, Jan. Aesthetic Function, Norm and Value as Social Facts. Trans. M. E. Suino. Ann Arbor: Michigan State UP, 1979. Thompson, E.M. Russian Formalism and Anglo-American New Criticism. Wellek, René. The Literary Theory and Aesthetics of the Prague School. Suggested Websites: Prague Linguistic Circle - Dr. John Gohol "Mikhail Bakhtin" by Dr. Mary Klages - University of Colorado at Boulder "Russian Formalism" - Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism The Bakhtin Circle - by Dr. Craig Brandist - The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Russian Formalism - Dr. John Gohol Dialogism: An International Journal of Bakhtin Studies - The Bakhtin Centre - University of Sheffield Avant-Garde / Surrealism / Dadaism Avant-Garde literally meant the "most forwardly placed troops." The movement sought to eliminate or at least blur the distinction between art and life often by introducing elements of mass culture. These artists aimed to "make it new" and often represented themselves as alienated from the established order. Avant-garde literature and art challenged societal norms to "shock" the sensibilities of its audience (Childers & Hentzi, p.26 and Abrams, p.110). Surrealism (also associated with the avant-garde and dadaism) was initiated in particular by André Breton, whose 1924 "Manifesto of Surrealism" defined the movement's "adherence to the imagination, dreams, the fantastic, and the irrational." Dada is a nonsense word and the movement, in many ways similar to the trends of avant-garde and surrealism, "emphasized absurdity, reflected a spirit of nihilism, and celebrated the function of chance" (Childers & Hentzi, p. 69). Major figures include André Breton (breh-TAWN), Georges Bataille (beh-TYE), Tristan Tzara, Jean Arp, Richard Huelsenbeck, Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp (dew-SHAHN), Man Ray, Raoul Hausmann, Max Ernst and Kurt Schwitters. Further references: Bataille, Georges. The Absence of Myth: Writings on Surrealism. Edited, translated, and introduced by Michael Richardson. London, New York: Verso, c1994 Bürger, Peter. Theory of the Avant-Garde. Butler, Christopher. After the Wake: An Essay on the Contemporary Avant-Garde. Calinescu, Matei. Faces of Modernity: Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch. Carrouges, Michel. Andre Breton and the Basic Concepts of Surrealism. Trans. Maura Prendergast. University of Alabama Press, 1974. Matthews, J. H. Toward the Poetics of Surrealism. Short, Robert. Dada and Surrealism. Suggested Websites: Avant-Garde and Kitsch - Clement Greenberg (1939 article from Partisan Review) Surrealism - Wikipedia Dada - Wikipedia Surrealism - Dr. David Cunningham, The Literary Encyclopedia Structuralism and Semiotics Structuralism Structuralism is a way of thinking about the world which is predominantly concerned with the perceptions and description of structures. At its simplest, structuralism claims that the nature of every element in any given situation has no significance by itself, and in fact is determined by all the other elements involved in that situation. The full significance of any entity cannot be perceived unless and until it is integrated into the structure of which it forms a part (Hawkes, p. 11). Structuralists believe that all human activity is constructed, not natural or "essential." Consequently, it is the systems of organization that are important (what we do is always a matter of selection within a given construct). By this formulation, "any activity, from the actions of a narrative to not eating one's peas with a knife, takes place within a system of differences and has meaning only in its relation to other possible activities within that system, not to some meaning that emanates from nature or the divine" (Childers & Hentzi, p. 286.). Major figures include Claude Lévi-Strauss (LAY-vee-strows), A. J. Greimas (GREE-mahs), Jonathan Culler, Roland Barthes (bart), Ferdinand de Saussure (soh-SURR or soh-ZHOR), Roman Jakobson (YAH-keb-sen), Vladimir Propp, and Terence Hawkes. Semiology Semiotics, simply put, is the science of signs. Semiology proposes that a great diversity of our human action and productions--our bodily postures and gestures, the the social rituals we perform, the clothes we wear, the meals we serve, the buildings we inhabit--all convey "shared" meanings to members of a particular culture, and so can be analyzed as signs which function in diverse kinds of signifying systems. Linguistics (the study of verbal signs and structures) is only one branch of semiotics but supplies the basic methods and terms which are used in the study of all other social sign systems (Abrams, p. 170). Major figures include Charles Peirce, Ferdinand de Saussure, Michel Foucault (fou-KOH), Umberto Eco, Gérard Genette, and Roland Barthes (bart). Key Terms (much of this is adapted from Charles Bressler's Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice - see General Resources below): Binary Opposition - "pairs of mutually-exclusive signifiers in a paradigm set representing categories which are logically opposed and which together define a complete universe of discourse (relevant ontological domain), e.g. alive/not-alive. In such oppositions each term necessarily implies its opposite and there is no middle term" (Daniel Chandler). Mythemes - a term developed by Claude Lévi-Strauss--mythemes are the smallest component parts of a myth. By breaking up myths into mythemes, those structures (mythemes) may be studied chronologically (~ diacrhonically) or synchronically/relationally. Sign vs. Symbol - According to Saussure, "words are not symbols which correspond to referents, but rather are 'signs' which are made up of two parts (like two sides of a sheet of paper): a mark,either written or spoken, called a 'signifier,' and a concept (what is 'thought' when the mark is made), called a 'signified'" (Selden and Widdowson 104 - see General Resources below). The distinction is important because Saussure contended that the relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary; the only way we can distinguish meaning is by difference (one sign or word differs from another). The relational nature of language implied by Saussure's system rejects the concept that a word/symbol corresponds to an outside object/referent. Instead, meaning--the interpretation of a sign--can exist only in relationship with other signs. Selden and Widdowson use the sign system of traffic lights as an example. The color red, in that system, signifies "stop," even though "there is no natural bond between red and stop" (105). Meaning is derived entirely through difference, "a system of opposites and contrasts," e.g., referring back to the traffic lights' example, red's meaning depends on the fact that it is not green and not amber (105). Structuralist narratology - "a form of structuralism espoused by Vladimir Propp, Tzvetan Todorov, Roland Barthes, and Gerard Genette that illustrates how a story's meaning develops from its overall structure (its langue) rather than from each individual story's isolated theme. To ascertain a text's meaning, narratologists emphasize grammatical elements such as verb tenses and the relationships and configurations of figures of speech within the story" (Bressler 275 - see General Resources below). Further references: Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. Trans. R. Howard. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1972 ---. Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972. ---. The Pleasure of the Text. Caws, Peter. "What is Structuralism?" Partisan Review. Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 1968, pp. 75-91. Culler, Jonathan. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature. New York: Cornell UP, 1973. Eco, Umberto. Theory of Semiotics. Genette, Gérard. Narrative Discourse. Trans. Jane Lewin. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980. Hawkes, Terence. Structuralism and Semiotics. Berkeley: U of California P, 1977. Jefferson, Anne and David Robey. Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative Introduction. See chapter 4. Kristeva, Julia. Revolution in Poetic Language and Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Lentricchia, Frank. After the New Criticism. See chapter 4. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Raw and the Cooked.1964. Trans. John and Doreen Weighman. New York: Harper, 1975. ---. Structural Anthropology. Trans. C. Jacobson and B. G. Schoeph. London: Allen Lane, 1968. Riffaterre, Michael. Semiotics of Poetry Peirce, Charles. Values in a Universe of Chance: Selected Writings of Charles S. Peirce. Propp, Vladimir.The Morphology of the Folktale. 1928. Trans. Laurence Scott. Austin: U of Texas P, 1968. (de) Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. W. Baskin. London: Fontana/Collins, 1974. Scholes, Robert. Structuralism in Literature: An Introduction. New Haven: Yale UP, 1974. Silverman, Kaja. The Subject of Semiotics. Sebeok, Thomas. The Tell-Tale Sign: A Survey of Semiotics. Todorov, Tzvetan. The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Trans. Richard Howard. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977. Suggested Websites: "Elements of Structuralism" - Dr. John Lye (Brock University) Structuralism - Wikipedia Structuralism - John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism "Structuralism/Poststructuralism" - Dr. Mary Klages (University of Colorado at Boulder) "Definition of Structuralism" - virtuaLit "Semiotics for Beginners" - Dr. David Chandler (University of Wales) Semiotics - Wikipedia Semiotics - Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction Post-Structuralism (which is often used synonymously with Deconstruction or Postmodernism) is a reaction to structuralism and works against seeing language as a stable, closed system. It is a shift from seeing the poem or novel as a closed entity, equipped with definite meanings which it is the critic's task to decipher, to seeing literature as irreducibly plural, an endless play of signifiers which can never be finally nailed down to a single center, essence, or meaning . Jacques Derrida's (dair-ree-DAH) paper on "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" (delivered in 1966) proved particularly influential in the creation of post-structuralism. Derrida argued against, in essence, the notion of a knowable center (the Western ideal of logocentrism), a structure that could organize the differential play of language or thought but somehow remain immune to the same "play" it depicts (Abrams, 258-9). Derrida's critique of structuralism also heralded the advent of deconstruction that--like post-structuralism--critiques the notion of "origin" built into structuralism. In negative terms, deconstruction--particularly as articulated by Derrida--has often come to be interpreted as "anything goes" since nothing has any real meaning or truth. More positively, it may posited that Derrida, like Paul de Man (de-MAHN) and other post-structuralists, really asks for rigor, that is, a type of interpretation that is constantly and ruthlessly self-conscious and on guard. Similarly, Christopher Norris (in "What's Wrong with Postmodernism?") launches a cogent argument against simplistic attacks of Derrida's theories: On this question [the tendency of critics to read deconstruction "as a species of all-licensing sophistical 'freeplay'"), as on so many others, the issue has been obscured by a failure to grasp Derrida's point when he identifies those problematic factors in language (catachreses, slippages between 'literal' and 'figural' sense, subliminal metaphors mistaken for determinate concepts) whose effect--as in Husserl--is to complicate the passage from what the text manifestly means to say to what it actually says when read with an eye to its latent or covert signifying structures. This 'free-play' has nothing whatsoever to do with that notion of an out-and-out hermeneutic license which would finally come down to a series of slogans like "all reading is misreading," "all interpretation is misinterpretation," etc. If Derrida's texts have been read that way--most often by literary critics in quest of more adventurous hermeneutic models--this is just one sign of the widespread deformation professionelle that has attended the advent of deconstruction as a new arrival on the US academic scene. (151) In addition to Jacques Derrida, key poststructuralist and deconstructive figures include Michel Foucault (fou-KOH), Roland Barthes (bart), Jean Baudrillard (zhon boh-dree-YAHR), Helene Cixous (seek-sou), Paul de Man (de-MAHN), J. Hillis Miller, Jacques Lacan (lawk-KAWN), and Barbara Johnson. Key Terms : Aporia (ah-por-EE-ah)- a moment of undecidability; the inherent contradictions found in any text. Derrida, for example, cites the inherent contradictions at work in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's use of the words culture and nature by demonstrating that Rousseau's sense of the self's innocence (in nature) is already corrupted by the concept of culture (and existence) and vice-versa. Différance - a combination of the meanings in the word différance. The concept means 1) différer or to differ, 2) différance which means to delay or postpone (defer), and 3) the idea of difference itself. To oversimplify, words are always at a distance from what they signify and, to make matters worse, must be described by using other words. Erasure (sous rature) - to highlight suspect ideologies, notions linked to the metaphysics of presence, Derrida put them under "erasure," metaphorically pointing out the absence of any definitive meaning. By using erasure, however, Derrida realized that a "trace" will always remain but that these traces do not indicate the marks themselves but rather the absence of the marks (which emphasize the absence of "univocal meaning, truth, or origin"). In contrast, when Heidegger similarly "crossed out" words, he assumed that meaning would be (eventually) recoverable. Logocentrism - term associated with Derrida that "refers to the nature of western thought, language and culture since Plato's era. The Greek signifier for "word," "speech," and "reason," logos possesses connotations in western culture for law and truth. Hence, logocentrism refers to a culture that revolves around a central set of supposedly universal principles or beliefs" (Wolfreys 302 - see General Resources below). Metaphysics of Presence - "beliefs including binary oppositions, logocentrism, and phonocentrism that have been the basis of Western philosophy since Plato" (Dobie 155, see General Resources below). Supplement - "According to Derrida, Western thinking is characterized by the 'logic of supplementation', which is actually two apparently contradictory ideas. From one perspective, a supplement serves to enhance the presence of something which is already complete and self-sufficient. Thus, writing is the supplement of speech, Eve was the supplement of Adam, and masturbation is the supplement of 'natural sex'....But simultaneously, according to Derrida, the Western idea of the supplement has within it the idea that a thing that has a supplement cannot be truly 'complete in itself'. If it were complete without the supplement, it shouldn't need, or long-for, the supplement. The fact that a thing can be added-to to make it even more 'present' or 'whole' means that there is a hole (which Derrida called an originary lack) and the supplement can fill that hole. The metaphorical opening of this "hole" Derrida called invagination. From this perspective, the supplement does not enhance something's presence, but rather underscores its absence" (from Wikipedia - definition of supplement). Trace - from Lois Tyson (see General Resources below): "Meaning seems to reside in words (or in things) only when we distinguish their difference from other words (or things). For example, if we believed that all objects were the same color, we wouldn't need the word red (or blue or green) at all. Red is red only because we believe it to be different from blue and green (and because we believe color to be different from shape). So the word red carries with it the trace of all the signifiers it is not (for it is in contrast to other signifiers that we define it)" (245). Tyson's explanation helps explain what Derrida means when he states "the trace itself does not exist." Transcendental Signifier - from Charles Bressler (see General Resources below): a term introduced by Derrida who "asserts that from the time of Plato to the present, Western culture has been founded on a classic, fundamental error: the searching for a transcendental signified, an external point of reference on which one may build a concept or philosophy. Once found, this transcendental signified would provide ultimate meaning. It would guarantee a 'center' of meaning...." (287). Further references: Atkins, C. Douglas. Reading Deconstruction/Deconstructive Reading. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1983. Barthes, Roland. S/Z. 1970. Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang, 1975. Baudrillard, Jean. America. Trans. Chris Turner. London:Verso, 1988. ---. Cool Memories. Trans. Chris Turner. London: Verso, 1990. ---. The Mirror of Production. Trans. Mark Poster. St. Lois: Telos P, 1973. ---. Simulations. New York: Semiotext(e), 1983. Belsey, Catherine. Critical Practice. New York: Routledge, 1980. Bloom, Harold, Geoffrey Hartman, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, and J. Hillis Miller. Deconstruction and Criticism. New York: Seabury, 1979. Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology and Writing and Difference. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1976. De Man, Paul. Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust and Blindness and Insight. Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon, 1984. Hartman, Geoffrey. Saving the Text: Literature/Derrida/Philosophy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1981. Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings. Howells, Christina. Derrida: Deconstruction from Phenomenology to Ethics. Cambridge, 1999. Kamuf, Peggy, ed. A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds. Johnson, Barbara. The Critical Difference: Essays in the Contemporary Rhetoric of Reading. Baltimore. 1980. Leitch, Vincent B. Deconstructive Criticism: An Advanced Introduction. New York: Columbia UP, 1983. Norris, Christopher. Deconstruction: Theory and Practice. Sarup, Mandan. An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1989. Taylor, Mark C., ed. Deconstruction in Context: Literature and Philosophy. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986. Young, Robert, ed. Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader. Suggested Websites: Deconstruction - Wikipedia Deconstruction: Some Assumptions - Dr. John Lye, Brock University Deconstruction - Stanford University Deconstruction - Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism Poststructuralism - Wikipedia Structuralism/Poststructuralism - Dr. Mary Klages, University of Colorado at Boulder Postmodernism Though often used interchangeably with post-structuralism, postmodernism is a much broader term and encompasses theories of art, literature, culture, architecture, and so forth. In relation to literary study, the term postmodernism has been articulately defined by Ihab Hassan. In Hassan's formulation postmodernism differs from modernism in several ways: Modernism Post-Modernism Purpose Play Design Chance Hierarchy Anarchy Hypotactic Paratactic Totalization Deconstruction Presence Absence Root/Depth Rhizome/Surface Synthesis Antithesis Urbanism Anarchy and fragmentation Elitism Anti-authoritarianism In its simplest terms, postmodernism consists of the period following high modernism and includes the many theories that date from that time, e.g., structuralism, semiotics, post-structuralism, deconstruction, and so forth. For Jean Baudrillard, postmodernism marks a culture composed "of disparate fragmentary experiences and images that constantly bombard the individual in music, video, television, advertising and other forms of electronic media. The speed and ease of reproduction of these images mean that they exist only as image, devoid of depth, coherence, or originality" (Childers and Hentzi 235). Further references: Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations and Reflections. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation and Cool Memories. Doherty, Thomas, ed. Postmodernism: A Reader. Foster, Hal. The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture Hassan, Ihab. The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature, Paracriticisms: Seven Speculations of the Time, The Right Promethean Fire: Imagination, Science, and Cultural Change Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism. Huyssen, Andreas. After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. McHale, Brian. Postmodern Fiction. Suggested Websites: "Postmodernism" - Dr. Mary Klages (University of Colorado at Boulder) "Postmodernism is Fiction" - Pomono College Postmodernism - Georgetown University Postmodernism - Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism Postmodern Thought - Dr. Martin Ryder - University of Colorado at Denver Postmodernism - Paul Newall, Galilean Library New Historicism New Historicism (sometimes referred to as Cultural Poetics) emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, largely in reaction to the lingering effects of New Criticism and its ahistorical approach. "New" Historicism's adjectival emphasis highlights its opposition to the old historical-biographical criticism prevalent before the advent of New Criticism. In the earlier historical-biographical criticism, literature was seen as a (mimetic) reflection of the historical world in which it was produced. Further, history was viewed as stable, linear, and recoverable--a narrative of fact. In contrast, New Historicism views history skeptically (historical narrative is inherently subjective), but also more broadly; history includes all of the cultural, social, political, anthropological discourses at work in any given age, and these various "texts" are unranked - any text may yield information valuable in understanding a particular milieu. Rather than forming a backdrop, the many discourses at work at any given time affect both an author and his/her text; both are inescapably part of a social construct. Stephen Greenblatt was an early important figure, and Michel Foucault's (fou-KOH) intertextual methods focusing especially on issues such as power and knowledge proved very influential. Other major figures include Clifford Geertz, Louis Montrose, Catherine Gallagher, Jonathan Dollimore, and Jerome McCann. Key Terms: Discourse - [from Wolfreys - see General Resources below] - "defined by Michel Foucault as language practice: that is, language as it is used by various constituencies (the law, medicine, the church, for example) for purposes to do with power relationships between people" Episteme - [from Wolfreys - see General Resources below] - "Michel Foucault employs the idea of episteme to indicate a particular group of knowledges and discourses which operate in concert as the dominant discourses in any given historical period. He also identifies epistemic breaks, radical shifts in the varieties and deployments of knowledge for ideological purposes, which take place from period to period" Power - [from Wolfreys - see General Resources below] - "in the work of Michel Foucault, power constitutes one of the three axes constitutive of subjectification, the other two being ethics and truth. For Foucault, power implies knowledge, even while knowledge is, concomitantly, constitutive of power: knowledge gives one power, but one has the power in given circumstances to constitute bodies of knowledge, discourses and so on as valid or invalid, truthful or untruthful. Power serves in making the world both knowable and controllable. Yet, in the nature of power, as Foucault suggests in the first volume of his History of Sexuality, is essentially proscriptive, concerned more with imposing limits on its subjects." Self-positioning - [from Lois Tyson - see General Resources below] - "new historicism's claim that historical analysis is unavoidably subjective is not an attempt to legitimize a self-indulgent, 'anything goes' attitude toward the writing of history. Rather, the inevitability of personal bias makes it imperative that new historicists be aware of and as forthright as possible about their own psychological and ideological positions relative to the material they analyze so that their readers can have some idea of the human 'lens' through which they are viewing the historical issues at hand." Thick description - a term developed by Clifford Geertz; [from Charles Bressler - see General Resources below]: a "term used to describe the seemingly insignificant details present in any cultural practice. By focusing on these details, one can then reveal the inherent contradictory forces at work within culture. " Further References: Brannigan, John. New Historicism and Cultural Materialism. New York: St. Martin's P, 1998. Cox, Jeffrey N. and Larry J. Reynolds, eds. New Historical Literary Study: Essays on Reproducing Texts, Representing History. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993. Dollimore, Jonathan. Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology, and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1984. Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon, 1984. ---. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage, 1979. ---. The Order of Things. New York: Pantheon, 1972. Gallagher, Catherine and Stephen Greenblatt. Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2000. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, 1983. Greenblatt, Stephen. Hamlet in Purgatory. Princeton: PUP, 2001. ---. Introduction. "The Forms of Power and the Power of Forms in the Renaissance." Genre 15 (Summer 1982): 3-6. ---. Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture. New York: Routledge, 1991. ---. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980. Hunt, Lynn, ed. The New Cultural History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California P, 1989. McCann, Jerome. The Beauty of Inflections: Literary Investigations in Historical Method and Theory. OUP, 1985. Montrose, Louis. "New Historicisms." Redrawing the Boundaries: The Transformation of English and American Literary Studies. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn. New York: Modern Language Association, 1992. Morris, Wesley. Toward a New Historicism. Princeton: PUP, 1972. Vesser, H. Aram, ed. The New Historicism. New York: Routledge, 1989. Suggested Websites: General Introduction to New Historicism - Dr. Dino Felluga The New Historicism in Literary Study - D. G. Myers New Historicism - Wikipedia Definition of New Historicism - Bedford-St. Martin's Press New Historicism - Dr. Barbara McManus New Historicism (long .pdf file) - Martin Windisch - University of Stuttgart Reception and Reader-Response Theory Reader-response theory may be traced initially to theorists such as I. A. Richards (The Principles of Literary Criticism, Practical Criticism and How to Read a Page) or Louise Rosenblatt (Literature as Exploration or The Reader, the Text, the Poem). For Rosenblatt and Richards the idea of a "correct" reading--though difficult to attain--was always the goal of the "educated" reader (armed, of course, with appropriate aesthetic apparatus). For Stanley Fish (Is There a Text in this Class?, Surprised by Sin: The Reader in "Paradise Lost" and Self-Consuming Artifacts: The Experience of the Seventeenth-Century Reader), the reader's ability to understand a text is also subject a reader's particular "interpretive community." To simplify, a reader brings certain assumptions to a text based on the interpretive strategies he/she has learned in a particular interpretive community. For Fish, the interpretive community serves somewhat to "police" readings and thus prohibit outlandish interpretations. In contrast Wolfgang Iser argued that the reading process is always subjective. In The Implied Reader, Iser sees reading as a dialectical process between the reader and text. For Hans-Robert Jauss, however (Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, and Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics), a reader's aesthetic experience is always bound by time and historical determinants. Key Terms: Horizons of expectations - a term developed by Hans Robert Jauss to explain how a reader's "expectations" or frame of reference is based on the reader's past experience of literature and what preconceived notions about literature the reader possesses (i.e., a reader's aesthetic experience is bound by time and historical determinants). Jauss also contended that for a work to be considered a classic it needed to exceed a reader's horizons of expectations. Implied reader - a term developed by Wolfgang Iser; the implied reader [somewhat akin to an "ideal reader"] is "a hypothetical reader of a text. The implied reader [according to Iser] "embodies all those predispositions necessary for a literary work to exercise its effect -- predispositions laid down, not by an empirical outside reality, but by the text itself. Consequently, the implied reader as a concept has his roots firmly planted in the structure of the text; he is a construct and in no way to be identified with any real reader" (Greig E. Henderson and Christopher Brown - Glossary of Literary Theory). Interpretive communities - a concept, articulated by Stanley Fish, that readers within an "interpretive community" share reading strategies, values and interpretive assumptions (Barbara McManus). Transactional analysis - a concept developed by Louise Rosenblatt asserting that meaning is produced in a transaction of a reader with a text. As an approach, then, the critic would consider "how the reader interprets the text as well as how the text produces a response in her" (Dobie 132 - see General Resources below). Further References: Austin, J. L.How to Do Things with Words. 1962 Bleich, David. Readings and Feelings: An Introduction to Subjective Criticism. 1978 Bloom, Harold. A Map of Misreading. 1975. Booth, Stephen. An Essay on Shakespeare's Sonnets. New Haven: Yale UP, 1969. Culler, Jonathan. The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction. 1981. Eco, Umberto. The Role of the Reader. 1979. Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1980. Holland, Norman. 5 Readers Reading. New Haven: Yale UP, 1975. Iser, Wolfgang. The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1974. ---. The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1974. Jauss, Hans Robert. Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1982. ---. Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. U of Minneapolis P, 1982. Mailloux, Steven. Interpretive Conventions: The Reader in the Study of American Fiction. 1982 Holland, Norman. The Dynamics of Literary Response. 1968, 5 Readers Reading. 1975 Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy. New York: Methuen, 1982. Richards, I.A. How to Read a Page. 1942. ---. Practical Criticism: A Study of Literary Judgment. 1929. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935. Riffaterre, Michael. Semiotics of Poetry. 1978. Rosenblatt, Louise. The Reader, the Text, the Poem. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1978. Suleiman, Susan R., and Inge Crosman, eds. The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation. Princeton UP, 1980. Tompkins, Jane, ed. Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1980. Suggested Websites: "Reader Response: Various Positions" - Dr. John Lye - Brock University Reader Response Theory and Criticism - Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism Reader-Response Criticism - Wikipedia "The Author, the Text, and the Reader" - Clarissa Lee Ai Ling, The London School of Journalism Definition of Reader-Response Criticism - virtuaLit "Reader-Response Theory of Stanley Fish" by Chris Lang Wolfgang Iser (and reader-response theory) by David Albertson - Stanford Presidential Lectures in the Humanities and Arts Feminism To speak of "Feminism" as a theory is already a reduction. However, in terms of its theory (rather than as its reality as a historical movement in effect for some centuries) feminism might be categorized into three general groups: theories having an essentialist focus (including psychoanalytic and French feminism); theories aimed at defining or establishing a feminist literary canon or theories seeking to re-interpret and re-vision literature (and culture and history and so forth) from a less patriarchal slant (including gynocriticism, liberal feminism); and theories focusing on sexual difference and sexual politics (including gender studies, lesbian studies, cultural feminism, radical feminism, and socialist/materialist feminism). Further, women (and men) needed to consider what it meant to be a woman, to consider how much of what society has often deemed inherently female traits, are culturally and socially constructed. Simone de Beauvoir's study, The Second Sex, though perhaps flawed by Beauvoir's own body politics, nevertheless served as a groundbreaking book of feminism, that questioned the "othering" of women by western philosophy. Early projects in feminist theory included resurrecting women's literature that in many cases had never been considered seriously or had been erased over time (e.g., Charlotte Perkins Gilman was quite prominent in the early 20th century but was virtually unknown until her work was "re-discovered" later in the century). Since the 1960s the writings of many women have been rediscovered, reconsidered, and collected in large anthologies such as The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. However, merely unearthing women's literature did not ensure its prominence; in order to assess women's writings the number of preconceptions inherent in a literary canon dominated by male beliefs and male writers needed to be re-evaluated. Betty Friedan's The Feminist Mystique (1963), Kate Millet's Sexual Politics (1970), Teresa de Lauretis's Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (1984), Annette Kolodny's The Lay of the Land (1975), Judith Fetterly's The Resisting Reader (1978), Elaine Showalter's A Literature of Their Own (1977), or Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic (1979) are just a handful of the many critiques that questioned cultural, sexual, intellectual, and/or psychological stereotypes about women. Key Terms (this list is woefully inadequate; suggestions for additional terms would be appreciated): Androgyny - taken from Women Studies page of Drew University - "'...suggests a world in which sex-roles are not rigidly defined, a state in which ?the man in every woman' and the ?woman in every man' could be integrated and freely expressed' (Tuttle 19). Used more frequently in the 1970's, this term was used to describe a blurring, or combination of gender roles so that neither masculinity or femininity is dominant." Backlash - a term, which may have originated with Susan Faludi, referring to a movement ( ca. 1980s) away from or against feminism. Écriture féminine - Écriture féminine, literally women's writing, is a philosophy that promotes women's experiences and feelings to the point that it strengthens the work. Hélène Cixous first uses this term in her essay, "The Laugh of the Medusa," in which she asserts, "Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies. Écriture féminine places experience before language, and privileges the anti-linear, cyclical writing so often frowned upon by patriarchal society' (Wikipedia). Essentialism - taken from Women Studies page of Drew University - "The belief in a uniquely feminine essence, existing above and beyond cultural conditioning...the mirror image of biologism which for centuries justified the oppression of women by proclaiming the natural superiority of men (Tuttle 90)." Tong's use of the term is relative to the explanation of the division of radical feminism into radical-cultural and radical libertarian. Gynocentrics - "a term coined by the feminist scholar-critic Elaine Showalter to define the process of constructing "a female framework for analysis of women's literature [in order] to develop new models [of interpretation] based on the study of female experience, rather than to adapt to male models and theories'" (Bressler 269, see General Resources below). Jouissance - a term most commonly associated with Helene Cixous (seek-sou), whose use of the word may have derived from Jacques Lacan - "Cixous follows Lacan's psychoanalytic paradigm, which argues that a child must separate from its mother's body (the Real) in order to enter into the Symbolic. Because of this, Cixous says, the female body in general becomes unrepresentable in language; it's what can't be spoken or written in the phallogocentric Symbolic order. Cixous here makes a leap from the maternal body to the female body in general; she also leaps from that female body to female sexuality, saying that female sexuality, female sexual pleasure, feminine jouissance, is unrepresentable within the phallogocentric Symbolic order" (Dr. Mary Klages, "Postructuralist Feminist Theory") Patriarchy - "Sexism is perpetuated by systems of patriarchy where male-dominated structures and social arrangements elaborate the oppression of women. Patriarchy almost by definition also exhibits androcentrism, meaning male centered. Coupled with patriarchy, androcentrism assumes that male norms operate through out all social institutions and become the standard to which all persons adhere" (Joe Santillan - University of California at Davis). Phallologocentrism - "language ordered around an absolute Word (logos) which is ?masculine? [phallic], systematically excludes, disqualifies, denigrates, diminishes, silences the ?feminine? (Nikita Dhawan). Second- and Third-Wave feminism - "Second-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist thought that originated around the 1960s and was mainly concerned with independence and greater political action to improve women's rights" (Wikipedia). "Third-wave feminism is a feminist movement that arguably began in the early 1990s. Unlike second-wave feminism, which largely focused on the inclusion of women in traditionally male-dominated areas, third-wave feminism seeks to challenge and expand common definitions of gender and sexuality" (Wikipedia). Semiotic - "[Julia] Kristeva (kris-TAYV-veh) makes a distinction between the semiotic and symbolic modes of communication: Symbolic = how we normally think of language (grammar, syntax, logic etc.) Semiotic = non-linguistic aspects of language which express drives and affects The semiotic level includes rhythms and sounds and the way they can convey powerful yet indefinable emotions" (Colin Wright - University of Nottingham). Further References on Psychoanalytic and French Feminism: Cixous (seek-sou), Hélène. "The Laugh of the Medusa" or "Sorties: Out & Out: Attacks/Ways Out/Forays." Flax, Jane. Thinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and Postmodernism in the Contemporary West, 1990. Gallop, Jane. The Daughter's Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysis, 1982. Grosz, E. A. (Elizabeth A.) Sexual Subversions: Three French Feminists. Boston : Allen & Unwin, 1989. Irigaray, Luce. Speculum of the Other Woman. Ithaca, N.Y : Cornell University Press, 1985. HQ1154 .I7413 1985 Kristeva (kris-TAYV-veh), Julia. The Kristeva Reader. Ed. Toril Moi, 1986. Marks, Elaine, and Isabelle de Courtivron, eds. New French Feminism. Brighton: Harvester, 1980. Moi, Toril. Sexual/textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. London ; New York : Methuen, 1985.PN98.W64 M65 1985 Oliver, Kelly, ed. French Feminism Reader. Rowman & Littlefield. 2000 Stanton, Domna. "Difference on Trial: A Critique of the Maternal Metaphor in Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva." The Poetics of Gender. Ed. Nancy K. Miller, 1986. Further References on Gynocriticism and Liberal Feminism: Eisenstein, Zillah R. The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism, 1981. Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. the Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Cednry Literary Imagination. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1979. Showalter, Elaine. "Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness." 1985. ---. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelist from Brontë to Lessin. Princeton: PUP, 1977. Wollstonecraft, Mary A. A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Further References on Gender Studies, G/L Studies, Cultural, Radical, and Socialist/Materialist Feminism: Brooks, Ann. Postfeminisms: Feminism, Cultural Theory, and Cultural Forms, 1997. Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex." 1993 . Crow, Barbara A., ed. Radical Feminism: An Historical Reader, 1999. Daly, Mary. Quintessence ... Realizing the Archaic Future: A Radical Elemental Feminist Manifesto, 1999. Heller, Dana, ed. Cross-Purposes: Lesbian Studies, Feminist Studies, and the Limits of Alliance, 1997. hooks, bell. Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, 1994. James, Joy. SHADOWBOXING: Representations of Black Feminist Politics, 1999 . Showalter, Elaine, ed. Speaking of Gender, 1989. Spector, Judith, ed. Gender Studies: New Directions in Feminist Criticism, 1986. Vicinus Martha, ed. Lesbian Subjects: A Feminist Studies Reader, 1996. Suggested Websites: Approaches to Feminism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy "What is Feminism and Why Do We Have to Talk About It So Much?" by Dr. Mary Klages - University of Colorado at Boulder Feminism and Women's Studies - Carnegie Mellon U Women's Studies Online Resources (Dr. Joan Korenman -Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore County) Feminist Theory Website by Kristin Switala (Virginia Tech University) Women's Studies Website - Karia Tonella, University of Iowa Feminist Theory: An Overview - Elixabeth Lee - The Victorian Web Feminist Majority Foundation Feminist Theory - Wikipedia Feminist Theory Resources Genre Criticism Study of different forms or types of literature. Genre studies often focus on the characteristics, structures, and conventions attributed to different forms of literature, e.g., the novel, short story, poem, drama, film, etc. More recent inquiry in genre criticism centers on the bias often inherent in genre criticism such as its latent (or overt) racism and sexism. Further Resources - Fiction: Coe, Richard, Lorelei Lingard, and Tatiana Teslenko, eds. The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre: Strategies for Stability and Change. Cresskill: Hampton Press, 2002. Cohn, Dorit. Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1978. (discussion of first and third person narratology) PN 3448 P8 C6 Derrida, Jacques. "'The Law of Genre." Derek Attridge, (ed.) Acts of Literature. (New York and London: Routledge, 1992), 221 - 252. Duff, David, ed. Modern Genre Theory. Pearson Education Limited, 2000. Echer, Michael J.C. The Conditioned Imagination from Shakespeare to Conrad. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1977 (argues that in approaching a work of literature that involves an ?exo-cultural? character or theme we must take into account the ?culturally conditioned imagination? on the creation of a work of art) PR 408 .S64 E25 Fabb, Nigel. Language and Literary Structure: The Linguistic Analysis of Form in Verse and Narrative. Cambridge: CUP, 2002. Fowler, Alistair. Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1982 - (on the nature of literary genres and how they are formed) PN 45 .5 F6 Hale, Dorothy. Social Formalism: The Novel in Theory from Henry James to the Present. Stanford UP, 1998. Hutcheon, Linda. Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox. Waterloo: Wilfred Lauren UP, 1980 (PN 3503 .H8) Heiserman, Arthur. The Novel Before the Novel: Essays and Discussions About the Beginning of Prose Fiction in the West. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1977 ( traces beginnings of prose fiction to about the fourth century, A.D. ) - PA 3040 .H38 Keilman, Stephen B. The Self-Begetting Novel. New York: Columbia UP, 1980 - (a study of the narrative method in specific texts) PN 3503 .K4 McKeon, Michael, ed. Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach. John Hopkins Press, 2000. Rimmon-Kenan, Shloinith. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London and New York: Methuen, 1983 - excellent brief book providing overview on narratology (PN 212 .R55) Rosen, Alan. Dislocating the End: Climax, Closure, and the Invention of Genre. New York: Peter Lang, 2001. Smith, Barbara Hernstein. On the Margins of Discourse: The Relation of Literature to Language. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1979 - argues that novels are usually imitations of nonfictive writing acts, such as the production of histories or biographies (PN 54 .SE) Spilka, Mark. Towards a Poetics of Fiction: Essays from Novel: A Forum on Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1977 - collection of essays on various modern views and approaches to fictional critical theory (PN 3331 .T65) Suleiman, Susan R. Authoritarian Fictions: The Ideological Novel as a Literary Genre. New York: Columbia UP, 1983 - constructs a viable model of the roman a these as a genre (PQ 671 .S94) Torgovnick, Marianna. Closure in the Novel. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981 ? categorizes endings or closure in novels into three types: circular, parallel and incomplete (PN 3378 .T6) Watson, George. The Story of the Novel. London: Macmillan, 1979 ? discusses the elements that make a novel memorable; treats three types of English novels: memoir novel, letter? novel and the novel in the third person (PN 3491. .W3) Stowe, William W. Balzac, James, and the Realistic Novel. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983 - uses three novels by James and three by Balzac to construct a basis of ?systematic realism? in the novel (PN 3499 .578) Further Resources - Poetry: Baker, Carlos. The Echoing Green: Romanticism, Modernism and the Phenomenon of Transference in Poetry. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984 - elegantly written discussion of Wordsworth, Coleridge Byron, Shelley and Keats and then Yeats, Frost, Pound, Eliot, Stevens and Auden (PS 310 .R66 B34) Berg, Viola Jacobsen. Pathways for the Poet: Poetry Forms Explained and Illustrated. Millford: Mott Media, 1977 - dictionary of poetic forms (PM 1042 .B47) Forrest-Thomson, Veronica. Poetic Edifice: A Theory of 20th Century Poetry. Manchester UP, 1978 - argues that poetry ?is resolutely artificial, even when it tries to imitate the diction and cadences of ordinary speech? Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. New York: Random House, 1979 (this is the revised edition--a description, history and review of theory on poetic meter and form (PH 1505 .F79 ? first edition 1965) Hill, Archibald. Constituent and Pattern in Poetry. Austin: University of Texas P. 1977 - discussion of linguistic patterns in poetry (PN 1042 .H46) Haublein, Ernst. The Stanza. London: Methuen (Critical Idiom Series) ? historical description of stanzaic tradition (PM 1059 .S83) Hartman, Charles 0. Free Verse: An Essay on Prosody. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980 ? essay on the prosody of free verse (PH 1531 .F73 H37) - surveys critical positions and emphasizes re-definitions of the term (PN 56 .P3 P37x) McDonald, Peter. Serious Poetry: Form and Authority from Yeats to Hill. Oxford: Clarendon P, 2002. Nemerov, Howard. Figures of Thought: Speculations on the Meaning of poetry and other Essays. Boston: David R. Godine, - lively collection of essays. on poetry; what poetry is, the language of poetry, etc. (PN 1031 .N44) Perkins, David. History of Modern Poetry: from the 1890?s to the High Modernist Mode. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1976 - discussion of poetic traditions from 1890 to 1930 (PR 610 .P4) Thompson, Denys. The Uses of Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1978 - aims at describing part played by poetry from the earliest times to present day (PN 1111 .T5) Welsh, Andrew. Roots of Lyric: Primitive Poetry and Modern Poetics. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1977 - traces modern lyrical poetry back to its origins in primitive and folk rhythmical patterns (PN 1126 .W45 Further References - Drama: Brockett, Oscar G. The Theatre: An Introduction. 4th ed. New York: Holt, Rinhart, and Winston, 1979 - useful reference work (PN 2101 .B7) Caputi, Anthony. Buffo: The Genius of Vulgar Comedy. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1978 - on the history of low comedy and farce, from the Greeks to the present (PN 1922 .C3) Goldman, Michael. On Drama: Boundaries of Genre, Borders of Self. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2000. Howarth. W. D., ed. Comic Drama: The European Heritage. London: Methuen, 1977 ? series of papers that trace the development of comic drama from its beginnings in ancient Greece to the 20th Century (PN 2928 .E8 C6) Raber, Karen. Dramatic Difference: Gender, Class, and Genre in the Early Modern Closet Drama. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2001. Salgado, Gamini. English Drama: A Critical Introduction. London: Edward Arnold, 1980 - an account of drama in England from its medieval beginnings to the early 1970s; excellent (PR 625 .S2) Schleuter, June. Metafictional Characters in Modern Drama. New York: Columbia UP, 1979 discusses Pirandello, Genet, Beckett, Weiss, Albee, Stoppard, Handke (PN 1861 .S3) Seidel, Michael and Edward Mendelson. Homer to Beckett: The European Epic and Dramatic Tradition. New Haven: Yale UP, 1977 - sixteen essays on the study of European epic and dramatic traditions (PN 56 .E65 H6) Sinfield, Alan. Dramatic Monologue. London: Methuen, 1977 Further References - Short Story: Allen, Waiter. The Short Story in English. New York: Oxford UP.? mostly traces ?English? language short story (PR829 .A47) May, Charles E., ed. Short Story Theories. Athens: Ohio UP, 1976 - collection of essays by short story writers and critics approaching short story as a genre form; good annotated bibliography (PN 3373 .S39) Suggested Websites: "An Introduction to Genre Theory" by David Chandler "Genre Theory & Criticism: Historical Fiction Annotated Bibliography" - Dr. Cora Agatucci "Genre Studies" - Wikipedia "Genre" - The Museum of Broadcast Telecommunications "Bakhtin, Genre Formation, and the Cognitive Turn: Chronotopes as Memory Schemata" by Dr. Bart Kuenen Autobiographical Theory As the critical attention to biography waned in the mid-twentieth century, interest in autobiography increased. Autobiography paired well with theories such as structuralism and poststructuralism because autobiography was fertile ground for considering the divide between fact and fiction, challenging the possibility of presenting a life objectively, and examining how the shaping force of language prohibited any simple attempts at truth and reference. Classical autobiographies focused on public figures, were, largely, written by men, and works theorizing autobiography primarily treated men's life writing. Until the mid-1970s, little work was done on theorizing women's autobiographies. Major theorists include (and this list, I'm sure, excludes several important writers) Bella Brodski, Paul de Man (de-MAHN), Jacques Derrida (dair-ree-DAH), Paul John Eakin, Leigh Gilmore, Georges Gusdorf, Carolyn Heilbrun, Philippe Lejeune, Françoise Lionnet, Mary G. Mason, Nancy K. Miller, Shirley Neuman, Felicity Nussbaum, James Olney, Roy Pascal, Adrienne Rich, Sidonie Smith, Patricia Meyer Spacks, Domna Stanton, Julia Watson, and Karl Weintraub. Further References: Ashley, Kathleen, et al., eds. Autobiography and Postmodernism. Amherst: U of Massachusetts Press, 1994. Bell, Susan Groag and Marilyn Yalom, eds. Revealing Lives: Autobiography, Biography, and Gender. Albany: SUNY Press, 1990. Benstock, Shari. The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Women?s Autobiographical Writings. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina Press, 1988. Brodzki, Bella and Celeste Schenk. Life/Lines: Theorizing Women?s Autobiography. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1988. Bruss, Elizabeth W. Autobiographical Acts: The Changing Situation of a Literary Genre. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976. Cixous, Hélène. Rootprints: Memory and Life Writing. Trans. Eric Prenowitz. London ; New York: Routledge, 1997. Couser, Thomas. Altered Egos: Authority in American Autobiography. New York: Oxford UP, 1989. de Man, Paul. "Autobiography as De-Facement." MLN 94 (1979): 919:30. Derrida, Jacques. The Ear of the Other: Otobiography, Transference, Translation. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1985. Eakin, John Paul, ed. Fictions in Autobiography: Studies in the Art of Self-Invention. Princeton, PUP, 1985. Egan, Susanna. Mirror Talk: Genres of Crisis in Contemporary Autobiography. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina Press, 1999. Gilmore, Leigh. Autobiographics: A Feminist Theory of Women's Self-Representation. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994. Gusdorf, Georges. "Conditions and Limits of Autobiography." Trans. James Olney. In Olney's Autobiography (see below). Heilbrun, Carolyn. Writing a Woman's Life. New York: Ballantine Books, 1988. Hewitt, Leah. Autobiographical Tightropes. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1990. Jay, Paul. "Being in the Text: Autobiography and the Problem of the Subject." Modern Language Notes 97 (1982): 1046-63. Jelinek, Estelle. The Tradition of Women's Autobiography: From Antiquity to the Present. Boston: Twayne, 1986. ??. Ed. Women's Autobiography: Essays in Criticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. Jolly, Margaretta. Ed.. (2001). Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical forms. (2 vols). London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. Lejeune, Philippe. On Autobiography. Foreword by Paul John Eakin. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 1989. Marcus, Laura. Auto/biographical Discourses: Theory, Criticism, Practice. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994. Mason, Mary G. "The Other Voice: Autobiographies of Women Writers." In Olney's Autobiography (see below). Miller, Nancy K. Getting Personal: Feminist Occasions and Other Autobiographical Acts. New York: Routledge, 1991. Neuman, Shirley. "Autobiography and the Construction of the Feminine Body." Signature 2 (Winter 1989): 1-26. Nussbaum, Felicity. The Autobiographical Subject: Gender and Ideology in Eighteenth-Century England. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1989. Olney, James, ed. Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980. ??. Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972. Pascal, Roy. Design and Truth in Autobiography. London: Routledge, 1960. Siegel, Kristi. Women's Autobiographies, Culture, Feminism. New York: Peter Lang, 1999, 2001. description Smith, Sidonie. A Poetics of Women's Autobiography. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987. Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. U of Minnesota P, 2001. Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson, eds. Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. Madison: U of Wisconsin Press, 1998. Smith, Valerie. Self-Discovery and Authority in Afro-American Narrative. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987. Spengemann, William. The Forms of Autobiography: Episodes in a History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale UP, 1980. Stanley, Liz. The Auto/biographical I: The Theory and Practice of Feminist Auto/biography. Manchester/New York: Manchester UP, 1992. Stanton, Domna. "Autogynography: Is the Subject Different?" The Female Autograph. Eds. Domna Stanton and Jeannine Parsier Plottel. New York: New York Literary Forum, 1984. Watson, Julia, and Sidonie Smith. De/Colonizing the Subject: The Politics of Gender in Women's Autobiography. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1992. Weintraub, Karl. The Value of the Individual: Self and Circumstance in Autobiography. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1978. Suggested Websites: a/b: Auto/Biography Studies (journal edited by Rebecca Hogan, Joseph Hogan, and Emily Hipchen "Autobiography" - The Literary Encyclopedia Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography (book series) edited by William L. Andrews Travel Theory Interest in travel and travel writing has emerged as the result of an intellectual climate that is interrogating imperialism, colonialism, postcolonialism, ethnography, diaspora, multiculturalism, nationalism, identity, visual culture, and map theory. Travel theory's lexicon includes such words as transculturation, metropolitan center, "imperial eyes," contact zones, border crossing, tourist/traveler, imperial frontier, hybridity, margin, expatriation/repatriation, cosmopolitanism/localism, museology, displacement, home/abroad, arrival/return, road narrative, and diaspora, to name just a few. Major theorists include Sara Mills, James Clifford, Anne McClintock, Mary Louise Pratt, Homi Bhabha (bah-bah), Edward Said, Paul Fussell, Steven Clark, Inderpal Grewal, Guy Debord, Umberto Eco, Caren Kaplan, Dean McCannell, James Urry, Jean Baudrillard (boh-dree-YAHR), and David Spurr. References: Baudrillard, Jean. America. 1986. Trans Chris Turner. London & New York: Verso, 1996. Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994. ???. ed. Nation and Narration. London: Routledge, 1993. Blunt, Alison. Travel, Gender, and Imperialism: Mary Kingsley and West Africa. New York: Guilford P, 1994, Buzard, James. The Beaten Track: European Tourism, and the Ways to Culture, 1800?1918. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993. Chard, Chloe, and Helen Langdon. Transports: Travel, Pleasure, and Imaginative Geography, 1600-1830. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996. Chambers, Erve. Native Tours: The Anthropology of Travel and Tourism. Waveland Press, 1999. Clark, Steven H, ed. Travel Writing and Empire: Postcolonial Theory in Transit. Zed, 1999. Clifford, James. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1997. Codrescu, Andrei. Road Scholar: Coast to Coast Late in the Century. New York: Hyperion, 1993. Conroy, Jane, ed. Cross-Cultural Travel: Papers from the Royal Irish Academy Symposium on Literature and Travel--National University of Ireland, Galway, November 2002 - Vol. 7, Travel Writing Across the Disciplines (pictured below - series description)- New York: Peter Lang, 2003. Cooper, Brenda. The Weary Sons of Conrad: White Fiction Against the Grain of Africa's Dark Heart. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. Vol. 3 - Travel Writing Across the Disciplines. (pictured below - series description) Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. New York: Zone Books, 1995. Desmond, Jane. Staging Tourism: Bodies on Display from Waikiki to Sea World. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2001. Duncan, James and Gregory, Derek. Writes of Passage: Reading Travel Writing. London: Routledge, 1999. Eco, Umberto. Travels in Hyperreality. Trans. William Weaver. San Diego: Harcourt, 1986. Fussell, Paul. Abroad: British Literary Travelling Between the Wars. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1980. Gilbert, Helen, and Anna Johnston, eds. In Transit: Travel, Text, Empire. Vol. 4 - Travel Writing Across the Disciplines - (pictured below - series description). New York: Peter Lang, 2002. Grewal, Inderpal. Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire, and the Cultures of Travel. Durham: Duke UP, 1996. Groom, Eileen. Methods for Teaching Travel Literature and Writing: Exploring the World and Self. Vol. 9 - Travel Writing Across the Disciplines (pictured below - series description). New York: Peter Lang, 2005. Holland, Patrick, and Graham Huggan. Graham. Tourists with Typewriters: Critical Reflections on Contemporary Travel Writing. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1998. Hutchinson, Sikivu. Imagining Transit: Race, Gender, And Transportation Politics in Los Angeles. Vol. 2 - Travel Writing Across the Disciplines (pictured below - series description) - New York: Peter Lang, 2002. Knowable, Michael, ed. Temperamental Journeys: Essays on the Modern Literature of Travel. Athens and London: U of Georgia P, 1992. Lackey, Kris. Road Frames: The American Highway Narrative. Lincoln and London: U of Nebraska P, 1997. Lawrence, Karen. Penelope Voyages: Women and Travel in the British Literary Tradition. Theca and London: Cornell UP, 1994. Luck, Beth Taylor Fisher, eds. American Writers and the Picturesque Tour. Taylor & Francis, 1997. McConnell, Dean. The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. Berkeley: U of California P, 1999. Meccano, Anne. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Rout ledge, 1995. Mills, Sara. Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women?s Travel Writing and Colonialism. London and New York: Rout ledge, 1991. Morgan, Susan. Place Matters.New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1996. Paes de Barros, Deborah. Fast Cars and Bad Girls: Nomadic Subjects and Women's Road Stories. Vol. 8 - Travel Writing Across the Disciplines (pictured below - series description) - New York: Peter Lang, 2004. Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge, 1992. Primeau, Ronald. Romance of the Road: The Literature of the American Highway. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State UP, 1996. Rojek, Chris, and James Urry, eds. Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory. London: Routledge, 1997. Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993. ???.Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. Schmeller, Erik S. Perceptions of Race and Nation in English and American Travel Writers, 1833-1914. Vol. 5 - Travel Writing Across the Disciplines (pictured below - series description) - New York: Peter Lang, 2004. Shaffer, Marguerite S. Seeing America First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940. Smithsonian Institution P, 2001. Siegel, Kristi, ed. Gender, Genre, and Identity in Women's Travel Writing. New York: Peter Lang, 2004. (description) Siegel, Kristi, ed. Issues in Travel Writing: Empire, Spectacle, and Displacement. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. (description) Smith, Sidonie. Moving Lives: Twentieth Century Women's Travel Narratives. U of Minnesota P, 2001. Spurr, David. The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration. Durham: Duke UP, 1993. Urry, James. The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. London: Sage Publications, 1990. Watson, Sophie, and Katherine Gibson, eds. Postmodern Cities and Spaces. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995. Wood, Denis. The Power of Maps. New York: Guilford Press, 1992. Book Series - Travel Writing Across the Disciplines (series description) - Kristi Siegel, General Editor The Travel Narratives of Ella Maillart (Steinert Borella) Volume 12 Cross-Cultural Travel (Conroy) Volume 7 In Transit: Travel, Text, Empire (Gilbert) Volume 4 Weary Sons of Conrad (Cooper) Volume 3 Methods for Teaching Travel Literature and Writing (Groom) Volume 9 Imagining Transit (Hutchinson) Volume 2 Fast Cars and Bad Girls (Paes de Barros) Volume 8 Perceptions of Race and Nation (Schmeller) Suggested Websites: (Note: many of these websites were suggested in Dr. Donald Ross's Snapshot Traveller) International Society for Travel Writing (ISTW) - Dr. Donald Ross, of the University of Minnesota, also hosts a listserv and writes the Snapshot Traveller - website Studies in Travel Writing - edited by Tim Youngs (Nottingham Trent University) The Journal of African Travel Writing Literary Traveler (Nomad Group) Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE) Centre de Recherché sur la Littérature des Voyages (CRLV) Other General Literary Theory Websites: ACRL - Association of College and Research Libraries - Literary theory resources Introductory Guide to Critical Theory by Dino F. Felluga of Purdue University Literary Resources - Theory by Dr. Jack Lynch - Rutgers University Contemporary Literary Theory - Dr. John Lye (Brock University) Voice of the Shuttle Literary Theory Page by Dr. Alan Liu - USCB The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism Glossary of Literary Theory - University of Toronto Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (extensive range of articles on critical theory) Swirl - Theory Resources at Southern Oregon University by Warren Hedges Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy General Resources - Bibliography of Critical Theory Texts Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory: The Basics. London and New York: Routledge, 2001 Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 3rd Ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003. Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory: The Basics. London and New York: Routledge, 2001 Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, OUP, 2000. Davis, Robert Con, and Ronald Schleifer. Contemporary Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies (4th Edition). Longman, 1988. Dobie, Ann B. Theory into Practice: An Introduction to Literary Criticism. Thomson, 2002. Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983. Green, Keith and Jill LeBihan. Critical Theory & Practice: A Coursebook. London and New York: Routledge, 2004. Groden, Michael, and Martin Kreiswirth. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994 Guerin, Wilfred L. et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 4th Ed. New York: OUP, 1999. Hall, Donald E. Literary and Cultural Theory: From Basic Principles to Advanced Application. Boston: Houghton, 2001. Jefferson, Anne. and D. Robey, eds. Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative Introduction. London: Batsford, 1986. Keesey, Donald. Contexts for Criticism. 4th Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2003. Latimer, Dan. Contemporary Critical Theory. San Diego: Harcourt, 1989. Lentriccia, Frank. After the New Criticism. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1980. Lodge, David, with Nigel Wood. Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. 2nd Ed. London: Longman, 1988. Magill, Frank N, ed. Critical Survey of Literary Theory. Pasadena: Salem Press, 1987. Makaryk, Irena R., ed. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1993. Murfin, Ross and Ray, Supryia M. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2003. Natoli, Joseph, ed. Tracing Literary Theory. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1987. Patai, Daphne and Will H. Corral. Theory's Empire: An Anthology of Dissent. New York: Columbia UP, 2005. Sarup, Madan. An Introductory Guide to to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1989. Selden, Raman and Peter Widdowson. A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. 3rd Ed. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1993. Staton, Shirley F., ed. Literary Theories in Praxis. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1987. Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. New York & Long: Garland Publishing, 1999. Walder, Dennis, ed. Literature in the Modern World: Critical Essays and Documents. 2nd Ed. OUP, 2004. Wolfreys, Julian. ed. Introducing Literary Theories: A Guide and Glossary . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003. Critical Approaches to Literature Critical approaches to literature reveal how or why a particular work is constructed and what its social and cultural implications are. Understanding critical perspectives will help you to see and appreciate a literary work as a multilayered construct of meaning. Reading literary criticism will inspire you to reread, rethink, and respond. Soon you will be a full participant in an endless and enriching conversation about literature. Deconstruction Deconstruction involves the close reading of texts in order to demonstrate that any given text has irreconcilably contradictory meanings, rather than being a unified, logical whole. As J. Hillis Miller, the preeminent American deconstructor, has explained in an essay entitled "Stevens' Rock and Criticism as Cure" (1976), "Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently solid ground is no rock but thin air." Deconstruction was both created and has been profoundly influenced by the French philosopher on language Jacques Derrida. Derrida, who coined the term deconstruction, argues that in Western culture, people tend to think and express their thoughts in terms of binary oppositions. Something is white but not black, masculine and therefore not feminine, a cause rather than an effect. Other common and mutually exclusive pairs include beginning/end, conscious/unconscious, presence/absence, and speech/writing. Derrida suggests these oppositions are hierarchies in miniature, containing one term that Western culture views as positive or superior and another considered negative or inferior, even if only slightly so. Through deconstruction, Derrida aims to erase the boundary between binary oppositions?and to do so in such a way that the hierarchy implied by the oppositions is thrown into question. Although its ultimate aim may be to criticize Western logic, deconstruction arose as a response to structuralism and formalism. Structuralists believed that all elements of human culture, including literature, may be understood as parts of a system of signs. Derrida did not believe that structuralists could explain the laws governing human signification and thus provide the key to understanding the form and meaning of everything from an African village to Greek myth to a literary text. He also rejected the structuralist belief that texts have identifiable "centers" of meaning?a belief structuralists shared with formalists. Formalist critics, such as the New Critics, assume that a work of literature is a freestanding, self-contained object whose meaning can be found in the complex network of relations between its parts (allusions, images, rhythms, sounds, etc.). Deconstructors, by contrast, see works in terms of their undecidability. They reject the formalist view that a work of literary art is demonstrably unified from beginning to end, in one certain way, or that it is organized around a single center that ultimately can be identified. As a result, deconstructors see texts as more radically heterogeneous than do formalists. Formalists ultimately make sense of the ambiguities they find in a given text, arguing that every ambiguity serves a definite, meaningful, and demonstrable literary function. Undecidability, by contrast, is never reduced, let alone mastered. Though a deconstructive reading can reveal the incompatible possibilities generated by the text, it is impossible for the reader to decide among them. Feminist Criticism Feminist criticism became a dominant force in Western literary studies in the late 1970s, when feminist theory more broadly conceived was applied to linguistic and literary matters. Since the early 1980s, feminist literary criticism has developed and diversified in a number of ways and is now characterized by a global perspective. French feminist criticism garnered much of its inspiration from Simone de Beauvoir?s seminal book, Lé Deuxiéme Sexe (1949; The Second Sex). Beauvoir argued that associating men with humanity more generally (as many cultures do) relegates women to an inferior position in society. Subsequent French feminist critics writing during the 1970s acknowledged Beauvoir?s critique but focused on language as a tool of male domination, analyzing the ways in which it represents the world from the male point of view and arguing for the development of a feminine language and writing. Although interested in the subject of feminine language and writing, North American feminist critics of the 1970s and early 1980s began by analyzing literary texts?not by abstractly discussing language?via close textual reading and historical scholarship. One group practiced "feminist critique," examining how women characters are portrayed, exposing the patriarchal ideology implicit in the so-called classics, and demonstrating that attitudes and traditions reinforcing systematic masculine dominance are inscribed in the literary canon. Another group practiced what came to be called "gynocriticism," studying writings by women and examining the female literary tradition to find out how women writers across the ages have perceived themselves and imagined reality. While it gradually became customary to refer to an Anglo-American tradition of feminist criticism, British feminist critics of the 1970s and early 1980s objected to the tendency of some North American critics to find universal or "essential" feminine attributes, arguing that differences of race, class, and culture gave rise to crucial differences among women across space and time. British feminist critics regarded their own critical practice as more political than that of North American feminists, emphasizing an engagement with historical process in order to promote social change. By the early 1990s, the French, American, and British approaches had so thoroughly critiqued, influenced, and assimilated one another that nationality no longer automatically signaled a practitioner?s approach. Today?s critics seldom focus on "woman" as a relatively monolithic category; rather, they view "women" as members of different societies with different concerns. Feminists of color, Third World (preferably called postcolonial) feminists, and lesbian feminists have stressed that women are not defined solely by the fact that they are female; other attributes (such as religion, class, and sexual orientation) are also important, making the problems and goals of one group of women different from those of another. Many commentators have argued that feminist criticism is by definition gender criticism because of its focus on the feminine gender. But the relationship between feminist and gender criticism is, in fact, complex; the two approaches are certainly not polar opposites but, rather, exist along a continuum of attitudes toward sex, sexuality, gender, and language. The New Historicism The new historicism developed during the 1980s, largely in reaction to the text-only approach pursued by formalist New Critics and the critics who challenged the New Criticism in the 1970s. New historicists, like formalists and their critics, acknowledge the importance of the literary text, but they also analyze the text with an eye to history. In this respect, the new historicism is not "new"; the majority of critics between 1920 and 1950 focused on a work?s historical content and based their interpretations on the interplay between the text and historical contexts (such as the author?s life or intentions in writing the work). In other respects, however, the new historicism differs from the historical criticism of the 1930s and 1940s. It is informed by the poststructuralist and reader-response theory of the 1970s, as well as by the thinking of feminist, cultural, and Marxist critics whose work was also "new" in the 1980s. They are less fact- and event-oriented than historical critics used to be, perhaps because they have come to wonder whether the truth about what really happened can ever be purely or objectively known. They are less likely to see history as linear and progressive, as something developing toward the present, and they are also less likely to think of it in terms of specific eras, each with a definite, persistent, and consistent zeitgeist (spirit of the times). Hence they are unlikely to suggest that a literary text has a single or easily identifiable historical context. New historicist critics also tend to define the discipline of history more broadly than did their predecessors. They view history as a social science like anthropology and sociology, whereas older historicists tended to view history as literature's "background" and the social sciences as being properly historical. They have erased the line dividing historical and literary materials, showing not only that the production of one of William Shakespeare?s historical plays was both a political act and a historical event, but also that the coronation of Elizabeth I was carried out with the same care for staging and symbol lavished on works of dramatic art. New historicists remind us that it is treacherous to reconstruct the past as it really was?rather than as we have been conditioned by our own place and time to believe that it was. And they know that the job is impossible for those who are unaware of that difficulty, insensitive to the bent or bias of their own historical vantage point. Thus, when new historicist critics describe a historical change, they are highly conscious of (and even likely to discuss) the theory of historical change that informs their account. Many new historicists have acknowledged a profound indebtedness to the writings of Michel Foucault. A French philosophical historian, Foucault brought together incidents and phenomena from areas normally seen as unconnected, encouraging new historicists and new cultural historicists to redefine the boundaries of historical inquiry. Like the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Foucault refused to see history as an evolutionary process, a continuous development from cause to effect, from past to present toward THE END, a moment of definite closure, a Day of Judgment. No historical event, according to Foucault, has a single cause; rather, each event is tied into a vast web of economic, social, and political factors. Like Karl Marx, Foucault saw history in terms of power, but unlike Marx, he viewed power not simply as a repressive force or a tool of conspiracy but rather as a complex of forces that produces what happens. Not even a tyrannical aristocrat simply wields power, for the aristocrat is himself empowered by discourses and practices that constitute power. Not all new historicist critics owe their greatest debt to Foucault. Some, like Stephen Greenblatt, have been most nearly influenced by the British cultural critic Raymond Williams, and others, like Brook Thomas, have been more influenced by German Marxist critic Walter Benjamin. Still others?Jerome McGann, for example?have followed the lead of Soviet critic Mikhail Bakhtin, who viewed literary works in terms of polyphonic discourses and dialogues between the official, legitimate voices of society and other, more challenging or critical voices echoing popular culture. Psychoanalytic Criticism Psychoanalytic criticism originated in the work of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who pioneered the technique of psychoanalysis. Freud developed a language that described, a model that explained, and a theory that encompassed human psychology. His theories are directly and indirectly concerned with the nature of the unconscious mind. The psychoanalytic approach to literature not only rests on the theories of Freud; it may even be said to have begun with Freud, who wrote literary criticism as well as psychoanalytic theory. Probably because of Freud?s characterization of the artist?s mind as ?one urged on by instincts that are too clamorous,? psychoanalytic criticism written before 1950 tended to psychoanalyze the individual author. Literary works were read?sometimes unconvincingly?as fantasies that allowed authors to indulge repressed wishes, to protect themselves from deep-seated anxieties, or both. After 1950, psychoanalytic critics began to emphasize the ways in which authors create works that appeal to readers? repressed wishes and fantasies. Consequently, they shifted their focus away from the author?s psyche toward the psychology of the reader and the text. Norman Holland?s theories, concerned more with the reader than with the text, helped to establish reader-response criticism. Critics influenced by D.W. Winnicott, an object-relations theorist, have questioned the tendency to see the reader/text as an either/or construct; instead, they have seen reader and text (or audience and play) in terms of a relationship taking place in what Winnicott calls a ?transitional? or ?potential space??space in which binary oppositions like real/illusory and objective/subjective have little or no meaning. Jacques Lacan, another post-Freudian psychoanalytic theorist, focused on language and language-related issues. Lacan treats the unconscious as a language; consequently, he views the dream not as Freud did (that is, as a form and symptom of repression) but rather as a form of discourse. Thus we may study dreams psychoanalytically in order to learn about literature, even as we may study literature in order to learn more about the unconscious. Lacan also revised Freud?s concept of the Oedipus complex?the childhood wish to displace the parent of one?s own sex and take his or her place in the affections of the parent of the opposite sex?by relating it to the issue of language. He argues that the pre-oedipal stage is also a preverbal or ?mirror stage,? a stage he associates with the imaginary order. He associates the subsequent oedipal stage?which roughly coincides with the child?s entry into language?with what he calls the symbolic order, in which words are not the things they stand for but substitutes for those things. The imaginary order and the symbolic order are two of Lacan?s three orders of subjectivity, the third being the real, which involves intractable and substantial things or states that cannot be imagined, symbolized, or known directly (such as death). READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM Reader-response criticism encompasses various approaches to literature that explore and seek to explain the diversity (and often divergence) of readers' responses to literary works. Louise Rosenblatt is often credited with pioneering the approaches in Literature as Exploration (1938). In her 1969 essay "Towards a Transactional Theory of Reading," she summed up her position as follows: "A poem is what the reader lives through under the guidance of the text and experiences as relevant to the text." Recognizing that many critics would reject this definition, Rosenblatt wrote, "The idea that a poem presupposes a reader actively involved with a text is particularly shocking to those seeking to emphasize the objectivity of their interpretations." Rosenblatt implicitly and generally refers to formalists (the most influential of whom are the New Critics) when she speaks of supposedly objective interpreters shocked by the notion that a "poem" is cooperatively produced by a "reader" and a "text." Formalists spoke of "the poem itself," the "concrete work of art," the "real poem." They had no interest in what a work of literature makes a reader "live through." In fact, in The Verbal Icon (1954), William K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley used the term affective fallacy to define as erroneous the very idea that a reader?s response is relevant to the meaning of a literary work. Stanley Fish, whose early work is seen by some as marking the true beginning of contemporary reader-response criticism, also took issue with the tenets of formalism. In "Literature in the Reader: Affective Stylistics" (1970), he argued that any school of criticism that sees a literary work as an object, claiming to describe what it is and never what it does, misconstrues the very essence of literature and reading. Literature exists and signifies when it is read, Fish suggests, and its force is an affective one. Furthermore, reading is a temporal process, not a spatial one as formalists assume when they step back and survey the literary work as if it were an object spread out before them. The German critic Wolfgang Iser has described that process in The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (1974) and The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (1976). Iser argues that texts contain gaps (or blanks) that powerfully affect the reader, who must explain them, connect what they separate, and create in his or her mind aspects of a work that aren?t in the text but are incited by the text. With the re-definition of literature as something that only exists meaningfully in the mind of the reader, and with the re-definition of the literary work as a catalyst of mental events, comes a re-definition of the reader. No longer is the reader the passive recipient of those ideas that an author has planted in a text. "The reader is active," Rosenblatt had insisted. Fish makes the same point in "Literature in the Reader": "Reading is . . . something you do." Iser, in focusing critical interest on the gaps in texts, on the blanks that readers have to fill in, similarly redefines the reader as an active maker of meaning. Other reader-response critics define the reader differently. Wayne Booth uses the phrase the implied reader to mean the reader "created by the work." Iser also uses the term the implied reader but substitutes the educated reader for what Fish calls the intended reader. Since the mid-1970s, reader-response criticism has evolved into a variety of new forms. Subjectivists like David Bleich, Norman Holland, and Robert Crosman have viewed the reader?s response not as one "guided" by the text but rather as one motivated by deep-seated, personal, psychological needs. Holland has suggested that, when we read, we find our own "identity theme" in the text by using "the literary work to symbolize and finally replicate ourselves. We work out through the text our own characteristic patterns of desire." Even Fish has moved away from reader-response criticism as he had initially helped define it, focusing on "interpretive strategies" held in common by "interpretive communities"?such as the one comprised by American college students reading a novel as a class assignment. Fish?s shift in focus is in many ways typical of changes that have taken place within the field of reader-response criticism?a field that, because of those changes, is increasingly being referred to as reader-oriented criticism. Recent reader-oriented critics, responding to Fish?s emphasis on interpretive communities and also to the historically oriented perception theory of Hans Robert Jauss, have studied the way a given reading public?s "horizons of expectations" change over time. Many of these contemporary critics view themselves as reader-oriented critics and as practitioners of some other critical approach as well. Certain feminist and gender critics with an interest in reader response have asked whether there is such a thing as "reading like a woman." Reading-oriented new historicists have looked at the way in which racism affects and is affected by reading and, more generally, at the way in which politics can affect reading practices and outcomes. Gay and lesbian critics, such as Wayne Koestenbaum, have argued that sexualities have been similarly constructed within and by social discourses and that there may even be a homosexual way of reading. Structuralism Structuralism is a theory of humankind in which all elements of human culture, including literature, are thought to be parts of a system of signs. Critic Robert Scholes has described structuralism as a reaction to "?modernist? alienation and despair." European structuralists such as Roman Jakobson, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Roland Barthes (before his shift toward poststructuralism) attempted to develop a semiology, or semiotics (science of signs). Barthes, among others, sought to recover literature and even language from the isolation in which they had been studied and to show that the laws that govern them govern all signs, from road signs to articles of clothing. Structuralism was heavily influenced by linguistics, especially by the pioneering work of Ferdinand de Saussure. Particularly useful to structuralists was Saussure?s concept of the phoneme (the smallest basic speech sound or unit of pronunciation) and his idea that phonemes exist in two kinds of relationships: diachronic and synchronic. A phoneme has a diachronic, or "horizontal," relationship with those other phonemes that precede and follow it (as the words appear, left to right, on this page) in a particular usage, utterance, or narrative?what Saussure, a linguist, called parole (French for "word"). A phoneme has a synchronic, or "vertical," relationship with the entire system of language within which individual usages, utterances, or narratives have meaning?what Saussure called langue (French for "tongue," as in "native tongue," meaning language). An means what it means in English because those of us who speak the language are plugged into the same system (think of it as a computer network where different individuals can access the same information in the same way at a given time). Following Saussure, Lévi-Strauss, an anthropologist, studied hundreds of myths, breaking them into their smallest meaningful units, which he called "mythemes." Removing each from its diachronic relations with other mythemes in a single myth (such as the myth of Oedipus and his mother), he vertically aligned those mythemes that he found to be homologous (structurally correspondent). He then studied the relationships within as well as between vertically aligned columns, in an attempt to understand scientifically, through ratios and proportions, those thoughts and processes that humankind has shared, both at one particular time and across time. Whether Lévi-Strauss was studying the structure of myths or the structure of villages, he looked for recurring, common elements that transcended the differences within and among cultures. Structuralists followed Saussure in preferring to think about the overriding langue, or language of myth, in which each mytheme and mytheme-constituted myth fits meaningfully, rather than about isolated individual paroles, or narratives. Structuralists also followed Saussure's lead in believing that sign systems must be understood in terms of binary oppositions (a proposition later disputed by poststructuralist Jacques Derrida). In analyzing myths and texts to find basic structures, structuralists found that opposite terms modulate until they are finally resolved or reconciled by some intermediary third term. Thus a structuralist reading of Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) might show that the war between God and the rebellious angels becomes a rift between God and sinful, fallen man, a rift that is healed by the Son of God, the mediating third term. Although structuralism was largely a European phenomenon in its origin and development, it was influenced by American thinkers as well. Noam Chomsky, for instance, who powerfully influenced structuralism through works such as Reflections on Language (1975), identified and distinguished between "surface structures" and "deep structures" in language and linguistic literatures, including texts. Marxist Criticism Marxist criticism is a type of criticism in which literary works are viewed as the product of work and whose practitioners emphasize the role of class and ideology as they reflect, propagate, and even challenge the prevailing social order. Rather than viewing texts as repositories for hidden meanings, Marxist critics view texts as material products to be understood in broadly historical terms. In short, literary works are viewed as a product of work (and hence of the realm of production and consumption we call economics). Marxism began with Karl Marx, the nineteenth-century German philosopher best known for Das Kapital (1867; Capital), the seminal work of the communist movement. Marx was also the first Marxist literary critic, writing critical essays in the 1830s on such writers as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and William Shakespeare. Even after Marx met Friedrich Engels in 1843 and began collaborating on overtly political works such as The German Ideology (1846) and The Communist Manifesto (1848), he maintained a keen interest in literature. In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels discuss the relationship between the arts, politics, and basic economic reality in terms of a general social theory. Economics, they argue, provides the base, or infrastructure, of society, from which a superstructure consisting of law, politics, philosophy, religion, and art emerges. The revolution anticipated by Marx and Engels did not occur in their century, let alone in their lifetime. When it did occur, in 1917, it did so in a place unimagined by either theorist: Russia, a country long ruled by despotic czars but also enlightened by the works of powerful novelists and playwrights including Anton Chekhov, Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Russia produced revolutionaries like Vladimir Lenin, who shared not only Marx's interest in literature but also his belief in its ultimate importance. Leon Trotsky, Lenin's comrade in revolution, took a strong interest in literary matters as well, publishing Literature and Revolution (1924), which is still viewed as a classic of Marxist literary criticism. Of those critics active in the Soviet Union after the expulsion of Trotsky and the triumph of Stalin, two stand out: Mikhail Bakhtin and Georg Lukács. Bakhtin viewed language?especially literary texts?in terms of discourses and dialogues. A novel written in a society in flux, for instance, might include an official, legitimate discourse, as well as one infiltrated by challenging comments. Lukács, a Hungarian who converted to Marxism in 1919, appreciated pre revolutionary realistic novels that broadly reflected cultural "totalities" and were populated with characters representing human "types" of the author's place and time. Perhaps because Lukács was the best of the Soviet communists writing Marxist criticism in the 1930s and 1940s, non-Soviet Marxists tended to develop their ideas by publicly opposing his. In Germany, dramatist and critic Bertolt Brecht criticized Lukács for his attempt to enshrine realism at the expense not only of the other "isms" but also of poetry and drama, which Lukács had largely ignored. Walter Benjamin praised new art forms ushered in by the age of mechanical reproduction, and Theodor Adorno attacked Lukács for his dogmatic rejection of nonrealist modern literature and for his elevation of content over form. In addition to opposing Lukács and his overly constrictive canon, non-Soviet Marxists took advantage of insights generated by non-Marxist critical theories being developed in post?World War II Europe. Lucien Goldmann, a Romanian critic living in Paris, combined structuralist principles with Marx?s base superstructure model in order to show how economics determines the mental structures of social groups, which are reflected in literary texts. Goldmann rejected the idea of individual human genius, choosing instead to see works as the "collective" products of "trans-individual" mental structures. French Marxist Louis Althusser drew on the ideas of psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan and the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci, who discussed the relationship between ideology and hegemony, the pervasive system of assumptions and values that shapes the perception of reality for people in a given culture. Althusser?s followers included Pierre Macherey, who in A Theory of Literary Production (1966) developed Althusser?s concept of the relationship between literature and ideology; Terry Eagleton, who proposes an elaborate theory about how history enters texts, which in turn may alter history; and Frederic Jameson, who has argued that form is "but the working out" of content "in the realm of the superstructure." The New Criticism The New Criticism is a type of formalist literary criticism that reached its height during the 1940s and 1950s and that received its name from John Crowe Ransom?s 1941 book The New Criticism. New Critics treat a work of literature as if it were a self-contained, self-referential object. Rather than basing their interpretations of a text on the reader?s response, the author?s stated intentions, or parallels between the text and historical contexts (such as author?s life), New Critics perform a close reading, concentrating on the relationships within the text that give it its own distinctive character or form. New Critics emphasize that the structure of a work should not be divorced from meaning, viewing the two as constituting a quasi-organic unity. Special attention is paid to repetition, particularly of images or symbols, but also of sound effects and rhythms in poetry. New Critics especially appreciate the use of literary devices, such as irony, to achieve a balance or reconciliation between dissimilar, even conflicting, elements in a text. Because it stresses close textual analysis and viewing the text as a carefully crafted, orderly object containing formal, observable patterns, the New Criticism has sometimes been called an "objective" approach to literature. New Critics are more likely than certain other critics to believe and say that the meaning of a text can be known objectively. For instance, reader-response critics see meaning as a function either of each reader?s experience or of the norms that govern a particular interpretive community, and deconstructors argue that texts mean opposite things at the same time. The foundations of the New Criticism were laid in books and essays written during the 1920s and 1930s by I. A. Richards (Practical Criticism [1929]), William Empson (Seven Types of Ambiguity [1930]), and T. S. Eliot ("The Function of Criticism" [1933]). The approach was significantly developed later, however, by a group of American poets and critics, including R. P. Blackmur, Cleanth Brooks, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, and William K. Wimsatt. Although we associate the New Criticism with certain principles and terms?such as affective fallacy (the notion that the reader?s response is relevant to the meaning of a work) and intentional fallacy (the notion that the author?s intention determines the work?s meaning)?the New Critics were trying to make a cultural statement rather than to establish a critical dogma. Generally southern, religious, and culturally conservative, they advocated the inherent value of literary works (particularly of literary works regarded as beautiful art objects) because they were sick of the growing ugliness of modern life and contemporary events. Some recent theorists even link the rising popularity after World War II of the New Criticism (and other types of formalist literary criticism such as the Chicago School) to American isolationism. These critics tend to view the formalist tendency to isolate literature from biography and history as symptomatic of American fatigue with wider involvements. Whatever the source of the New Criticism?s popularity (or the reason for its eventual decline), its practitioners and the textbooks they wrote were so influential in American academia that the approach became standard in college and even high school curricula through the 1960s and well into the 1970s. Formalism Formalism is a general term covering several similar types of literary criticism that arose in the 1920s and 1930s, flourished during the 1940s and 1950s, and are still in evidence today. Formalists see the literary work as an object in its own right. Thus, they tend to devote their attention to its intrinsic nature, concentrating their analyses on the interplay and relationships between the text?s essential verbal elements. They study the form of the work (as opposed to its content), although form to a formalist can connote anything from genre (for example, one may speak of "the sonnet form") to grammatical or rhetorical structure to the "emotional imperative" that engenders the work's (more mechanical) structure. No matter which connotation of form pertains, however, formalists seek to be objective in their analysis, focusing on the work itself and eschewing external considerations. They pay particular attention to literary devices used in the work and to the patterns these devices establish. Formalism developed largely in reaction to the practice of interpreting literary texts by relating them to "extrinsic" issues, such as the historical circumstances and politics of the era in which the work was written, its philosophical or theological milieu, or the experiences and frame of mind of its author. Although the term formalism was coined by critics to disparage the movement, it is now used simply as a descriptive term. Formalists have generally suggested that everyday language, which serves simply to communicate information, is stale and unimaginative. They argue that "literariness" has the capacity to overturn common and expected patterns (of grammar, of story line), thereby rejuvenating language. Such novel uses of language supposedly enable readers to experience not only language but also the world in an entirely new way. A number of schools of literary criticism have adopted a formalist orientation, or at least make use of formalist concepts. The New Criticism, an American approach to literature that reached its height in the 1940s and 1950s, is perhaps the most famous type of formalism. But Russian formalism was the first major formalist movement; after the Stalinist regime suppressed it in the early 1930s, the Prague Linguistic Circle adopted its analytical methods. The Chicago School has also been classified as formalist, insofar as the Chicago critics examined and analyzed works on an individual basis; their interest in historical material, on the other hand, was clearly not formalist. Postcolonial Criticism A type of cultural criticism, postcolonial criticism usually involves the analysis of literary texts produced in countries and cultures that have come under the control of European colonial powers at some point in their history. Alternatively, it can refer to the analysis of texts written about colonized places by writers hailing from the colonizing culture. In Orientalism (1978), Edward Said, a pioneer of postcolonial criticism and studies, focused on the way in which the colonizing First World has invented false images and myths of the Third (postcolonial) World?stereotypical images and myths that have conveniently justified Western exploitation and domination of Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures and peoples. In the essay "Postcolonial Criticism" (1992), Homi K. Bhabha has shown how certain cultures (mis)represent other cultures, thereby extending their political and social domination in the modern world order. Postcolonial studies, a type of cultural studies, refers more broadly to the study of cultural groups, practices, and discourses?including but not limited to literary discourses?in the colonized world. The term postcolonial is usually used broadly to refer to the study of works written at any point after colonization first occurred in a given country, although it is sometimes used more specifically to refer to the analysis of texts and other cultural discourses that emerged after the end of the colonial period (after the success of the liberation and independence movements). Among feminist critics, the postcolonial perspective has inspired an attempt to recover whole cultures of women heretofore ignored or marginalized?women who speak not only from colonized places but also from the colonizing places to which many of them fled. Postcolonial criticism has been influenced by Marxist thought, by the work of Michel Foucault (whose theories about the power of discourses have influenced the new historicism), and by deconstruction, which has challenged not only hierarchical, binary oppositions such as West/East and North/South but also the notions of superiority associated with the first term of each opposition. Adapted from The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms by Ross Murfin and Supryia M. Ray. Copyright 1998 by Bedford Books. Myth CriticismAdapted from: http://www.textetc.com/criticism/myth-criticism.html Overview Myth criticism attempts to bring out the cultural myths underlying literature, and many are indeed apparent in this poem: time, sea, land and sky, control, creation, decay and regeneration. Some need to be developed more fully. Introduction Far from being primitive fictions ? about the natural world, some supposed ancestor, or tribal practice ? myths are reflections of a profound reality. They dramatically represent our instinctive understandings. Moreover, unlike Freud's concepts, myths are collective and communal, and so bring a sense of wholeness and togetherness to social life. Native peoples, and indeed whole civilizations, have their own mythologies, but there appear to be common images, themes and motives {1} which Jung called "archetypes".{2} The mythology of the classical world provided themes for some of the world's greatest drama, {3} and similar themes can be traced in Renaissance literature {4} through to modern poetry. {5} Hamlet, for example, is often seen as the reluctant hero who must sacrifice himself to purify a Denmark made diseased by the foul and unnatural murder of its king. {6} Yeats, Pound and Eliot employ the myths of history, rebirth and fulfillment through sacrifice {7}, as do other poets. {8} Myth criticism continues to draw freely on the psychology of Jung, on social anthropology, on the study of religions {9}, on metaphor and depth psychology, but the archetypal criticism of Northrop Frye has attempted to redefine what criticism is, and what it can be expected to do. {10} Frye attempted a general theory of literature, which he approached from four perspectives. Rather that justify what were little more than matters of preference (i.e. squabble over the relative merits of authors and their works) scholars should derive principles, structures and laws from the study of literature itself. His first essay in Anatomy of Criticism recognized various levels of realism in literature, an articulation he termed a theory of modes. The second essay put forward a theory of symbols, recognizing five levels ranging from the mundane to the anagogic (the last represented in work of a religious or spiritual nature). The theory of myths that forms the third essay has possibly been Frye's most influential contribution. He starts by identifying the four seasons ? spring, summer, autumn and winter ? with the four main plots or 'mythoi' of romance, comedy, tragedy, and irony/satire. These are further broken down into phases. The mythos of winter consists of six phases, the last representing human life in terms of unrelieved bondage: prisons, madhouses, lynching mobs and places of execution. The human figures of this phase are the dispossessed, the destitute and mad-ogres, witches, Baudelaire's black giantess and Pope's Dullness. Frye distinguishes between signs (which point outward to things beyond themselves) and motifs (which are understood inwardly as parts of a verbal structure). Literature is preeminently an autonomous verbal structure where the sign-values are subordinate to the interconnectedness of motifs. The fourth essay proposes a theory of genres, where Frye outlined the differences between the lyric, epic, dramatic work, etc. Frye's approach was invigorating, but has not been broadly accepted. His categories seem arbitrary, and many works of art do not fit neatly into any category. For all his learning, Frye's focus was on western literature and its classification. So general a view does not help the practising poet with rewriting, or the critic explaining how one piece of literature is better than another, beyond of course understanding the larger picture. Finally, though Frye's own criticism was subtle and illuminating, the approach too easily degenerated into "hunt the symbol" exercises. {11} But important matters lie behind symbolism. Literature employs words, and the reality behind words has been the central preoccupation of twentieth century philosophy. Linguistic philosophy attempted to explain away the great philosophical dilemmas of existence as the improper use of words. Structuralism described literature as the surface expression of deep anthropological (and often) binary codes. Poststructuralism denied that words could be anything but part of an endless web of yet more words, without final referent or meaning. Postmodernism uses words as flat, media images, without deeper reference. None of these has been very unconvincing. Words do have great emotional and intellectual power if employed in certain ways, and these ways draw on matters of deep and lasting interest to the human psyche. Mythic criticism (indeed all criticism: Frye makes this point) is subsequent to literature, as history is to action. We cannot clothe with plot and character the skeletal requirements of criticism and expect literature to result. Works of art follow their own devices and grow out of the artist's imagination, only submitting to criticism if they still seem incomplete or unsatisfactory. But mythic criticism can show the writer where his imagery is coming from, and suggest reasons for its power. Subsequent work ? deep thought, reading and endless toying with possibilities ? may then turn up further material. Whether that material is useful can only be found by testing it in the poem, a trial and error process of continual adaptation and refinement that may eventually achieve the strengths of the coherence theory of truth: transforming power, internal consistency, simplicity, elegance and fertility. Published Examples of Myth Criticism Kenneth Burke. Counter-Statement. 1953. John Livingston Lowes. The Road to Xanadu. 1927. Caroline Spurgeon. Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us. 1935. Northrop Frye. Anatomy of Criticism. 1957. Time We start by taking in turn the archetypal themes represented: time, sea, land and sky, control, creation, illness and regeneration. The poem: Time is introduced immediately ? expect and impatient ? continues with past days and is then maintained by tense changes (present in stanza 3, past in stanza 4, present in stanza 5, present and future in stanza 6). Time is one of the most fundamental archetypes, and here it appears in typical form, a mystical immersion into cyclical time. But the subject isn't man directly but the buildings he inhabits. More exactly, it is their constituents. Buildings are largely constructed of glass (sand), brick (baked clay) and concrete (aggregate, steel and burnt limestone), all of which are dug out of the earth. In time the buildings will decay, be knocked down, and the rubble dumped to make new fill. Even the land is not everlasting but is ceaselessly worn away by water, which may grind the hardest materials to pebbles but also deposit the pebbles in sea-cliffs or river terraces, where they become sources of aggregate again. Man can only mimic on a small scale what geological processes are doing constantly: eroding the land and remaking it by deposition, metamorphism, and orogenic uplift. Human life is fleeting, and man's usual victory over mortality is only through reproduction and the achievements of the societies which outlive him. But here the immortality considered is buildings, which are constructed like termite mounds on the land he occupies, and so brought into the ceaseless cycle of geological creation. But the emphasis on "silicate", of which sand is the most familiar example, also suggests deserts, death, spiritual aridity and nihilism. The constituents of the building were created by the pounding of the North Sea, and indeed carry echoes of that creation within them (having much in them / Of the North Sea), but now they are inert, immobilized, can only be released when the buildings are reconstructed. Sea Equally a symbol of death and regeneration is the sea, which appears in stanza 1 as the heavy surf of the North Sea and again in the last stanza with the great whales that fill with placid but unbearable melodies / Us in the deep hinterlands of incurved glass. What are these hinterlands but a sea of glass that seems to draw us in (deep) and drown us in its impenetrable reflection? The poem, which starts and ends with aspects of the sea, is again cyclical, and in this incarnation the sense of imprisonment in his own creations is even stronger (pleading and flailing, unbearable and deep hinterlands) Land and Sky Generally, at least in Aryan mythology, the earth is a mother goddess and the sky a paternal figure. {12} It is therefore striking that the fourth stanza, where the sky (cloudless...afternoons, blue airiness / Spinning around) is clearly evoked, is marked by a change of thought (So perhaps...). We are still with the bureaucrats, but have joined them in their high office block, where they seem out of their element (lightheaded with the blue airiness / Spinning around, and muzzy) and barely able to cope (frail relations and a distant office they cannot get to). The sky theme is not continued, and indeed the bureaucrats themselves are abruptly replaced by the architects (they become attentive, or we do), who introduce the whales and the submarine imagery. Control Bureaucrats are unimaginative officials who administer by rule and regulation. Their lives are described here as tough ... distant and intricate. Silicates are complex molecules but do not make up living structures. The bureaucrats are not creating anything (awaiting the post and the department meeting and are indeed settled ... in concrete pallets, appearing like so much paper stock in warehouses. We are in the world of the dead ? Frye's winter myth ? and the sense of imprisonment is again strong, although not realized by its inhabitants (Except that these do not know it ... being busy, generally.) Creators Since architects are creative people, and start their training in art colleges, the title no doubt has some bearing on imaginative processes, with creating something not existing before. But architects are not identified by name, only appearing by default in the "we" of line 23, where they occupy the focus of attention as the bureaucrats fade out. The switch is conscious (they become attentive), for both parties (or we do), but the responsibilities are not seized upon with any confidence. Indeed, the buildings are likened to whales, gentle but doomed creatures, whose plight is all too vivid to their creators (fill with placid but unbearable melodies). What is being indicated? Mythologies have much to say on creation (since the existence of a world at all requires explanation) but creation is usually seen as only part of the endless cycle of birth and death, building and destruction, appearance and disappearance. As was noted before, there are suggestions of spiritual aridity in the buildings' constituents, and this affliction is extended to the bureaucrats, who perform meaningless, self-centred tasks. The architects are very different, and from the arid world of silicates immediately plunge us into the sea with their talk of whales. But note Aware that some trick of the light or weather / Will dress them as friends, which emphasizes the separateness of whales, their difference from humans. In some undisclosed way we have the suggestion that the architects, and thus the creative process itself, are being dragged into depths where they cannot function. They can hear the placid but unbearable melodies but are powerless to help, being fastened in the deep hinterlands of incurved glass. Illness Spiritual aridity brings sickness, and almost on cue the light-headedness of stanza 4 brings not elation but neuralgia. And even that complaint is not accessible to treatment, but appears inconsequential (Calling at random like frail relations) and at some remove (a phone / Ringing in a distant office they cannot get to). Indeed the content of lines 18 to 22 seems to valorize into the ether, perhaps emphasized by the word ringing. Subsequently, the imagery becomes more tactile (Divisions, great whales, trick, dress), but no more certain. Something is wrong, but exactly what remains unclear. Awareness has an element of chicanery and dressing up (Aware that some trick of the light or weather / Will dress them as friends) Perhaps it is the very illness itself that creates such a troubling view of the world. Regeneration The cyclic nature of building is clear enough in the first half of the poem, but where is the complementary response to decay and destruction? Mythologies emphasize that life grows from death, that lives, societies, artistic creations all have their growth, flowering, seeding, winter and rebirth. Where do we find this in the poem? It seems not to exist, which may account for the melancholy of the last stanza, and the uncomfortable imprisonment of the last line. Conclusions: Suggestions How do we pull all this together? The indications are intriguing but not going in one direction, or anywhere at all. Can that be the subject of the poem ? a perplexing sense of otherness, a vague feeling that much is wrong with modern life, that neither the bureaucrats or the architects have either control over their lives in any meaningful way, or belong to a larger process of life-enhancement and renewal? The poem is a sort of modern Waste Land, much less ambitious than Eliot's and limited to an aspect of the natural world. If that is so, then a good deal needs to be resolved if the piece is to work as a traditional poem, notably: the storm imagery of stanza 2: where does this fit in? the office situation of stanza 5: should this remain so nebulous? the identity of the reader referred to by "you", "we" and "us". Who is being buttonholed in this way? If they are different, should this not be made clearer? the status of the deep hinterlands with which the poem concludes. In what sense is the reader imprisoned in this incurved glass? the incompleteness of the cycle. Where is the regeneration? Of course, if the poem is not traditional but Postmodernist in intention, then none of these recommendations apply. Its arbitrary and fragmented nature may very well be an apt copy of modern life itself. Some of the shortcomings have been corrected in a new version, now entitled Office Workers. References 1. Joseph Campbell's The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology (1959), and Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough (1922).2. Maud Bodkin's Archetypal Patterns in Poetry (1934).3. Gilbert Murray's Euripides and his Age (1913), and Francis Cornford's Origin of Attic Comedy (1914). 4. Gilbert Murray's The Classical Tradition in Poetry (1927), and Francis Fergusson's The Idea of a Theater (1949).5. Lillian Feder's Ancient Myth in Modern Poetry (1971). 6. Philip Wheelright's The Burning Fountain (1954), and Giorgio de Santillana and Herta von Dechend's Hamlet's Mill (1969).7. Daniel Hoffman's Barbarous Knowledge: Myth in the Poetry of Yeats, Graves and Muir (1967), Hugh Kenner's The Poetry of Ezra Pound (1951), and George Williamson's A Reader's Guide to T. S. Eliot (1966). 8. Feder 1971.9. Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane (1959).10. Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism (1957).11. pp. 344-349 in David Daiches's Critical Approaches to Literature (1981).12. Campbell 1959. Internet Resources 1. Paganism and Myths of Creation: A Ritual of Transformation. Walter Wright Arthen. Nov. 2002. http://www.earthspirit.com/fireheart/fhpmyth.html. Creation myths in different cultures.2. Joseph Campbell Foundation. http://www.jcf.org/. Continues the work of this popular researcher into mythology.3. Myths Among Us. http://www.mythsamongus.com/. Articles and links for the mythology of Jung, Campbell and others. 4. Mything Links. Kathleen Jenks. http://www.mythinglinks.org/. Extensive links to mythologies, fairy tales, sacred art and traditions. 5. The Psychological in the Neighborhood of Thought and Poetry: The Uncanny Logos of the Psyche. Michael P. Sipiora. http://www.janushead.org/3-1/msipiora.cfm. Heidegger, Jung and Freud in the writing of poetry.6. Jungian, Archetypal, Imaginal, and Depth Psychology. 1995. http://www.arespress.com/AresPages/Story.html. Helpful synopsis.7. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). Paul Bishop. 2003. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/cjung.htm. Books and Writers article. 8. Carl Jung 1875-1961. Oct. 2001. http://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/KeyTheorists/Jung.htm. Short article and a good range of listings. 9. C.G. Jung. http://www.cgjungpage.org/. Very full site devoted to life and work of Carl Jung. 10. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). Kelley L. Ross. 2002. http://www.friesian.com/jung.htm. Jung's works from a Friesian philosophical perspective.11. Quakerism and Jungian Psychology. John R. Yungblut. Apr. 2001. http://www.quaker.org/fcrp/yungblut.html. Religious dimension to Jungian psychology. 12. C.G. Jung Institute of Boston. http://www.cgjungboston.com/. Useful resources on links page. 13. Carl Gustav Jung. Tom Gannon. Apr. 2002. http://www.usd.edu/~tgannon/jung.html. Good listing of websites.14. Jung Reading List. Tom Davis. 2000. http://www.bham.ac.uk/english/bibliography/theories_of_the_mind/ReadingLists/junglist.htm. Good bibliography, but not online.15. Jungian, Archetypal, Imaginal, and Depth Psychology. 1995. http://www.arespress.com/AresPages/Story.html. Brief account of differences.16. What Is Depth Psychology? Craig Chalquist. http://www.tearsofllorona.com/depth.html. Introductory account. 17. Depth Psychology. http://www.talentdevelop.com/depthpsych.html. Selected articles on Jungian and depth psychology. 18. James Hillman. http://www.mythosandlogos.com/Hillman.html. Hillman's page at Mythos and Logos, with extensive listings. 19. Quantum Physics, Depth Psychology, and Beyond. Thomas J. McFarlane. Jun. 2000. http://www.integralscience.org/psyche-physis.html. Larger correspondences between Jungian psychology and quantum physics. 20. Northrop Frye. 1999. http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/litlinks/critical/frye.htm. Introduction and link. 21. Northrop Frye: Polemical Introduction. http://www.noteaccess.com/Texts/Frye/Intro.htm. Short excerpts from his writings.22. The Legacy of Northrop Frye by Alvin A.Lee and Robert Denham (eds.) 1995. http://www.pum.umontreal.ca/revues/surfaces/vol5/miller06.html. Extended book review. 23. Northrop Frye Centre. http://vicu.utoronto.ca/fryecentre/. Promotes interest and research into the critic's work.24. Caroline Spurgeon. "Shakespeare's Imagery". Aug. 1998. http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/Shakespeare_Abstracts/_disc4/00000061.htm. Note on the book.25. Storytelling Organizations. David M. Boje. http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/storytellingorg.html. Storytelling structues, with a mention of Burke.26. Disciplining The Master: Finding the Via Media for Kenneth Burke. Andrew King. 2001. http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vol4/iss2/special/King.htm. Burke's aims and importance.27. Bibliography of Secondary Sources on Kenneth Burke 1924-2002. David Blakesley. 2002. http://www.sla.purdue.edu/dblakesley/burke/secondary.pdf. Some 766 listed, not online.28. Substantive & Essentialist Definitions of Religion. http://atheism.about.com/libra  © C. John Holcombe 2007.   Material can be freely used for non-commercial purposes if cited in the usual way. Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/). Contributors:Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins.Summary: This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy. Introduction A very basic way of thinking about literary theory is that these ideas act as different lenses critics use to view and talk about art, literature, and even culture. These different lenses allow critics to consider works of art based on certain assumptions within that school of theory. The different lenses also allow critics to focus on particular aspects of a work they consider important. For example, if a critic is working with certain Marxist theories, s/he might focus on how the characters in a story interact based on their economic situation. If a critic is working with post-colonial theories, s/he might consider the same story but look at how characters from colonial powers (Britain, France, and even America) treat characters from, say, Africa or the Caribbean. Hopefully, after reading through and working with the resources in this area of the OWL, literary theory will become a little easier to understand and use. Disclaimer Please note that the schools of literary criticism and their explanations included here are by no means the only ways of distinguishing these separate areas of theory. Indeed, many critics use tools from two or more schools in their work. Some would define differently or greatly expand the (very) general statements given here. Our explanations are meant only as starting places for your own investigation into literary theory. We encourage you to use the list of scholars and works provided for each school to further your understanding of these theories. We also recommend the following secondary sources for study of literary theory: The Critical Tradition: Classical Texts and Contemporary Trends, 1998, edited by David H. Richter Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, 1999, by Louis Tyson Beginning Theory, 2002, by Peter Barry Although philosophers, critics, educators and authors have been writing about writing since ancient times, contemporary schools of literary theory have cohered from these discussions and now influence how scholars look at and write about literature. The following sections overview these movements in critical theory. Though the timeline below roughly follows a chronological order, we have placed some schools closer together because they are so closely aligned. Timeline (most of these overlap) Moral Criticism, Dramatic Construction (~360 BC-present) Formalism, New Criticism, Neo-Aristotelian Criticism (1930s-present) Psychoanalytic Criticism, Jungian Criticism(1930s-present) Marxist Criticism (1930s-present) Reader-Response Criticism (1960s-present) Structuralism/Semiotics (1920s-present) Post-Structuralism/Deconstruction (1966-present) New Historicism/Cultural Studies (1980s-present) Post-Colonial Criticism (1990s-present) Feminist Criticism (1960s-present) Gender/Queer Studies (1970s-present) Contributors:Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins.Summary: This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy. Moral Criticism and Dramatic Construction (~360 BC-present) Plato In Book X of his Republic, Plato may have given us the first volley of detailed and lengthy literary criticism. The dialog between Socrates and two of his associates shows the participants of this discussion concluding that art must play a limited and very strict role in the perfect Greek Republic. Richter provides a nice summary of this point: "...poets may stay as servants of the state if they teach piety and virtue, but the pleasures of art are condemned as inherently corrupting to citizens..." (19). One reason Plato included these ideas in his Socratic dialog because he believed that art was a mediocre reproduction of nature: "...what artists do...is hold the mirror up to nature: They copy the appearances of men, animals, and objects in the physical world...and the intelligence that went into its creation need involve nothing more than conjecture" (Richter 19). So in short, if art does not teach morality and ethics, then it is damaging to its audience, and for Plato this damaged his Republic. Given this controversial approach to art, it's easy to see why Plato's position has an impact on literature and literary criticism even today (though scholars who critique work based on whether or not the story teaches a moral are few - virtue may have an impact on children's literature, however). Aristotle In Poetics, Aristotle breaks with his teacher (Plato) in the consideration of art. Aristotle considers poetry (and rhetoric), a productive science, whereas he thought logic and physics to be theoretical sciences, and ethics and politics practical sciences (Richter 38). Because Aristotle saw poetry and drama as means to an end (for example, an audience's enjoyment) he established some basic guidelines for authors to follow to achieve certain objectives. To help authors achieve their objectives, Aristotle developed elements of organization and methods for writing effective poetry and drama known as the principles of dramatic construction (Richter 39). Aristotle believed that elements like "...language, rhythm, and harmony..." as well as "...plot, character, thought, diction, song, and spectacle..." influence the audience's katharsis (pity and fear) or satisfaction with the work (Richter 39). And so here we see one of the earliest attempts to explain what makes an effective or ineffective work of literature. Like Plato, Aristotle's views on art heavily influence Western thought. The debate between Platonists and Aristotelians continued "...in the Neoplatonists of the second century AD, the Cambridge Platonists of the latter seventeenth century, and the idealists of the romantic movement" (Richter 17). Even today, the debate continues, and this debate is no more evident than in some of the discussions between adherents to the schools of criticism contained in this resource. Contributors:Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins.Summary: This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy. Formalism (1930s-present) Form Follows Function: Russian Formalism, New Criticism, Neo-Aristotelianism Formalists disagreed about what specific elements make a literary work "good" or "bad"; but generally, Formalism maintains that a literary work contains certain intrinsic features, and the theory "...defined and addressed the specifically literary qualities in the text" (Richter 699). Therefore, it's easy to see Formalism's relation to Aristotle's theories of dramatic construction. Formalism attempts to treat each work as its own distinct piece, free from its environment, era, and even author. This point of view developed in reaction to "...forms of 'extrinsic' criticism that viewed the text as either the product of social and historical forces or a document making an ethical statement" (699). Formalists assume that the keys to understanding a text exist within "the text itself," (..."the battle cry of the New Critical effort..." and thus focus a great deal on, you guessed it, form (Tyson 118). For the most part, Formalism is no longer used in the academy. However, New Critical theories are still used in secondary and college level instruction in literature and even writing (Tyson 115). Typical questions: How does the work use imagery to develop its own symbols? (i.e. making a certain road stand for death by constant association) What is the quality of the work's organic unity "...the working together of all the parts to make an inseparable whole..." (Tyson 121)? In other words, does how the work is put together reflect what it is? How are the various parts of the work interconnected? How do paradox, irony, ambiguity, and tension work in the text? How do these parts and their collective whole contribute to or not contribute to the aesthetic quality of the work? How does the author resolve apparent contradictions within the work? What does the form of the work say about its content? Is there a central or focal passage that can be said to sum up the entirety of the work? How do the rhythms and/or rhyme schemes of a poem contribute to the meaning or effect of the piece? Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory: Russian Formalism Victor Shklovsky Roman Jakobson Victor Erlich - Russian Formalism: History - Doctrine, 1955 Yuri Tynyanov New Criticism John Crowe Ransom - The New Criticism, 1938 I.A. Richards William Empson T.S. Eliot Allen Tate Cleanth Brooks Neo-Aristoteliansim (Chicago School of Criticism) R.S. Crane - Critics and Criticism: Ancient and Modern, 1952 Elder Olson Norman Maclean W.R. Keast Wayne C. Booth - The Rhetoric of Fiction, 1961 Contributors:Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins.Summary: This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy. Psychoanalytic Criticism (1930s-present) Sigmund Freud Psychoanalytic criticism builds on Freudian theories of psychology. While we don't have the room here to discuss all of Freud's work, a general overview is necessary to explain psychoanalytic literary criticism. The Unconscious, the Desires, and the Defenses Freud began his psychoanalytic work in the 1880s while attempting to treat behavioral disorders in his Viennese patients. He dubbed the disorders 'hysteria' and began treating them by listening to his patients talk through their problems. Based on this work, Freud asserted that people's behavior is affected by their unconscious: "...the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware..." (Tyson 14-15). Freud believed that our unconscious was influenced by childhood events. Freud organized these events into developmental stages involving relationships with parents and drives of desire and pleasure where children focus "...on different parts of the body...starting with the mouth...shifting to the oral, anal, and phallic phases..." (Richter 1015). These stages reflect base levels of desire, but they also involve fear of loss (loss of genitals, loss of affection from parents, loss of life) and repression: "...the expunging from consciousness of these unhappy psychological events" (Tyson 15). Tyson reminds us, however, that "...repression doesn't eliminate our painful experiences and emotions...we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to 'play out'...our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress" (15). To keep all of this conflict buried in our unconscious, Freud argued that we develop defenses: selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among others. Id, Ego, and Superego Freud maintained that our desires and our unconscious conflicts give rise to three areas of the mind that wrestle for dominance as we grow from infancy, to childhood, to adulthood: id - "...the location of the drives" or libido ego - "...one of the major defenses against the power of the drives..." and home of the defenses listed above superego - the area of the unconscious that houses judgement (of self and others) and "...which begins to form during childhood as a result of the Oedipus complex" (Richter 1015-1016) Oedipus Complex Freud believed that the Oedipus complex was "...one of the most powerfully determinative elements in the growth of the child" (Richter 1016). Essentially, the Oedipus complex involves children's need for their parents and the conflict that arises as children mature and realize they are not the absolute focus of their mother's attention: "the Oedipus complex begins in a late phase of infantile sexuality, between the child's third and sixth year, and it takes a different form in males than it does in females" (Richter 1016). Freud argued that both boys and girls wish to possess their mothers, but as they grow older "...they begin to sense that their claim to exclusive attention is thwarted by the mother's attention to the father..." (1016). Children, Freud maintained, connect this conflict of attention to the intimate relations between mother and father, relations from which the children are excluded. Freud believed that "the result is a murderous rage against the father...and a desire to possess the mother" (1016). Freud pointed out, however, that "...the Oedipus complex differs in boys and girls...the functioning of the related castration complex" (1016). In short, Freud thought that "...during the Oedipal rivalry [between boys and their fathers], boys fantasized that punishment for their rage will take the form of..." castration (1016). When boys effectively work through this anxiety, Freud argued, "...the boy learns to identify with the father in the hope of someday possessing a woman like his mother. In girls, the castration complex does not take the form of anxiety...the result is a frustrated rage in which the girl shifts her sexual desire from the mother to the father" (1016). Freud believed that eventually, the girl's spurned advanced toward the father give way to a desire to possess a man like her father later in life. Freud believed that the impact of the unconscious, id, ego, superego, the defenses, and the Oedipus complexes was inescapable and that these elements of the mind influence all our behavior (and even our dreams) as adults - of course this behavior involves what we write. Freud and Literature So what does all of this psychological business have to do with literature and the study of literature? Put simply, some critics believe that we can "...read psychoanalytically...to see which concepts are operating in the text in such a way as to enrich our understanding of the work and, if we plan to write a paper about it, to yield a meaningful, coherent psychoanalytic interpretation" (Tyson 29). Tyson provides some insightful and applicable questions to help guide our understanding of psychoanalytic criticism. Typical questions: How do the operations of repression structure or inform the work? Are there any oedipal dynamics - or any other family dynamics - are work here? How can characters' behavior, narrative events, and/or images be explained in terms of psychoanalytic concepts of any kind (for example...fear or fascination with death, sexuality - which includes love and romance as well as sexual behavior - as a primary indicator of psychological identity or the operations of ego-id-superego)? What does the work suggest about the psychological being of its author? What might a given interpretation of a literary work suggest about the psychological motives of the reader? Are there prominent words in the piece that could have different or hidden meanings? Could there be a subconscious reason for the author using these "problem words"? Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory: Harold Bloom - A Theory of Poetry, 1973; Poetry and Repression: Revisionism from Blake to Stevens, 1976 Peter Brooks Jacque Lacan - The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1988; "The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason Since Freud" (from Écrits: A Selection, 1957) Jane Gallop - Reading Lacan, 1985 Julia Kristeva - Revolution in Poetic Language, 1984 Marshall Alcorn - Changing the Subject in English Class: Discourse and the Constructions of Desire, 2002 Carl Jung Jungian criticism attempts to explore the connection between literature and what Carl Jung (a student of Freud) called the ?collective unconscious? of the human race: "...racial memory, through which the spirit of the whole human species manifests itself" (Richter 504). Jungian criticism, closely related to Freudian theory because of its connection to psychoanalysis, assumes that all stories and symbols are based on mythic models from mankind?s past. Based on these commonalities, Jung developed archetypal myths, the Syzygy: "...a quaternion composing a whole, the unified self of which people are in search" (Richter 505). These archetypes are the Shadow, the Anima, the Animus, and the Spirit: "...beneath...[the Shadow] is the Anima, the feminine side of the male Self, and the Animus, the corresponding masculine side of the female Self" (Richter 505). In literary analysis, a Jungian critic would look for archetypes (also see the discussion of Northrop Frye in the Structuralism section) in creative works: "Jungian criticism is generally involved with a search for the embodiment of these symbols within particular works of art." (Richter 505). When dealing with this sort of criticism, it is often useful to keep and handbook of mythology and a dictionary of symbols on hand. Typical questions: What connections can we make between elements of the text and the archetypes? (Mask, Shadow, Anima, Animus) How do the characters in the text mirror the archetypal figures? (Great Mother or nurturing Mother, Whore, destroying Crone, Lover, Destroying Angel) How does the text mirror the archetypal narrative patterns? (Quest, Night-Sea-Journey) How symbolic is the imagery in the work? How does the protagonist reflect the hero of myth? Does the ?hero? embark on a journey in either a physical or spiritual sense? Is there a journey to an underworld or land of the dead? What trials or ordeals does the protagonist face? What is the reward for overcoming them? Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory: Maud Bodkin - Archetypal Patterns in Poetry, 1934 Carl Jung - The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Vol. 9, Part 1 of Collected Works. 2nd ed. Trans. R.F.C. Hull, 1968 Bettina Knapp - Music, Archetype and the Writer: A Jungian View, 1988 Ricahrd Sugg - Jungian Literary Criticism, 1993 Contributors:Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins.Summary: This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy. Marxist Criticism (1930s-present) Whom Does it Benefit? Based on the theories of Karl Marx (and so influenced by philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel), this school concerns itself with class differences, economic and otherwise, as well as the implications and complications of the capitalist system: "Marxism attempts to reveal the ways in which our socioeconomic system is the ultimate source of our experience" (Tyson 277). Theorists working in the Marxist tradition, therefore, are interested in answering the overarching question, whom does it [the work, the effort, the policy, the road, etc.] benefit? The elite? The middle class? And Marxists critics are also interested in how the lower or working classes are oppressed - in everyday life and in literature. The Material Dialectic The Marxist school follows a process of thinking called the material dialectic. This belief system maintains that "...what drives historical change are the material realities of the economic base of society, rather than the ideological superstructure of politics, law, philosophy, religion, and art that is built upon that economic base" (Richter 1088). Marx asserts that "...stable societies develop sites of resistance: contradictions build into the social system that ultimately lead to social revolution and the development of a new society upon the old" (1088). This cycle of contradiction, tension, and revolution must continue: there will always be conflict between the upper, middle, and lower (working) classes and this conflict will be reflected in literature and other forms of expression - art, music, movies, etc. The Revolution The continuing conflict between the classes will lead to upheaval and revolution by oppressed peoples and form the groundwork for a new order of society and economics where capitalism is abolished. According to Marx, the revolution will be led by the working class (others think peasants will lead the uprising) under the guidance of intellectuals. Once the elite and middle class are overthrown, the intellectuals will compose an equal society where everyone owns everything (socialism - not to be confused with Soviet or Maoist Communism). Though a staggering number of different nuances exist within this school of literary theory, Marxist critics generally work in areas covered by the following questions. Typical questions: Whom does it benefit if the work or effort is accepted/successful/believed, etc.? What is the social class of the author? Which class does the work claim to represent? What values does it reinforce? What values does it subvert? What conflict can be seen between the values the work champions and those it portrays? What social classes do the characters represent? How do characters from different classes interact or conflict? Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory: Karl Marx - (with Friedrich Engels) The Communist Manifesto, 1848; Das Kapital, 1867; "Consciousness Derived from Material Conditions" from The German Ideology, 1932; "On Greek Art in Its Time" from A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859 Leon Trotsky - "Literature and Revolution," 1923 Georg Lukács - "The Ideology of Modernism," 1956 Walter Benjamin - "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," 1936 Theodor W. Adorno Louis Althusser - Reading Capital, 1965 Terry Eagleton - Marxism and Literary Criticism, Criticism and Ideology, 1976 Frederic Jameson - Marxism and Form, The Political Unconscious, 1971 Jürgen Habermas - The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, 1990 Contributors:Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins.Summary: This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy. Reader-Response Criticism (1960s-present) What Do You Think? At its most basic level, reader response criticism considers readers' reactions to literature as vital to interpreting the meaning of the text. However, reader-response criticism can take a number of different approaches. A critic deploying reader-response theory can use a psychoanalytic lens, a feminists lens, or even a structuralist lens. What these different lenses have in common when using a reader response approach is they maintain "...that what a text is cannot be separated from what it does" (Tyson 154). Tyson explains that "...reader-response theorists share two beliefs: 1) that the role of the reader cannot be omitted from our understanding of literature and 2) that readers do not passively consume the meaning presented to them by an objective literary text; rather they actively make the meaning they find in literature" (154). In this way, reader-response theory shares common ground with some of the deconstructionists discussed in the Post-structural area when they talk about "the death of the author," or her displacement as the (author)itarian figure in the text. Typical questions: How does the interaction of text and reader create meaning? What does a phrase-by-phrase analysis of a short literary text, or a key portion of a longer text, tell us about the reading experience prestructured by (built into) that text? Do the sounds/shapes of the words as they appear on the page or how they are spoken by the reader enhance or change the meaning of the word/work? How might we interpret a literary text to show that the reader's response is, or is analogous to, the topic of the story? What does the body of criticism published about a literary text suggest about the critics who interpreted that text and/or about the reading experience produced by that text? (Tyson 191) Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory: Peter Rabinowitz - Before Reading, 1987 Stanley Fish - Is There a Text in This Class?-The Authority of Interpretive Communities, 1980 Elizabeth Freund - The Return of the Reader: Reader-Response Criticism, 1987 David Bleich Norman Holland - The Dynamics of Literary Response, 1968 Louise Rosenblatt Wolfgang Iser - The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett, 1974 Hans Rober Jauss Contributors:Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins.Summary: This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy. Structuralism and Semiotics (1920s-present) Note: Structuralism, semiotics, and post-structuralism are some of the most complex literary theories to understand. Please be patient. Linguistic Roots The structuralist school emerges from theories of language and linguistics, and it looks for underlying elements in culture and literature that can be connected so that critics can develop general conclusions about the individual works and the systems from which they emerge. In fact, structuralism maintains that "...practically everything we do that is specifically human is expressed in language" (Richter 809). Structuralists believe that these language symbols extend far beyond written or oral communication. For example, codes that represent all sorts of things permeate everything we do: "the performance of music requires complex notation...our economic life rests upon the exchange of labor and goods for symbols, such as cash, checks, stock, and certificates...social life depends on the meaningful gestures and signals of 'body language' and revolves around the exchange of small, symbolic favors: drinks, parties, dinners" (Richter 809). Patterns and Experience Structuralists assert that, since language exists in patterns, certain underlying elements are common to all human experiences. Structuralists believe we can observe these experiences through patterns: "...if you examine the physical structures of all buildings built in urban America in 1850 to discover the underlying principles that govern their composition, for example, principles of mechanical construction or of artistic form..." you are using a structuralist lens (Tyson 197). Moreover, "you are also engaged in structuralist activity if you examine the structure of a single building to discover how its composition demonstrates underlying principles of a structural system. In the first example...you're generating a structural system of classification; in the second, you're demonstrating that an individual item belongs to a particular structural class" (Tyson 197). Structuralism in Literary Theory Structuralism is used in literary theory, for example, "...if you examine the structure of a large number of short stories to discover the underlying principles that govern their composition...principles of narrative progression...or of characterization...you are also engaged in structuralist activity if you describe the structure of a single literary work to discover how its composition demonstrates the underlying principles of a given structural system" (Tyson 197-198). Northrop Frye, however, takes a different approach to structuralism by exploring ways in which genres of Western literature fall into his four mythoi (also see Jungian criticism in the Freudian Literary Criticism resource): theory of modes, or historical criticism (tragic, comic, and thematic); theory of symbols, or ethical criticism (literal/descriptive, formal, mythical, and anagogic); theory of myths, or archetypal criticism (comedy, romance, tragedy, irony/satire); theory of genres, or rhetorical criticism (epos, prose, drama, lyric) (Tyson 240). Peirce and Saussure Two important theorists form the framework (hah) of structuralism: Charles Sanders Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure. Peirce gave structuralism three important ideas for analyzing the sign systems that permeate and define our experiences: "iconic signs, in which the signifier resembles the thing signified (such as the stick figures on washroom doors that signify 'Men' or 'Women'; indexes, in which the signifier is a reliable indicator of the presence of the signified (like fire and smoke); true symbols, in which the signifier's relation to the thing signified is completely arbitrary and conventional [just as the sound /kat/ or the written word cat are conventional signs for the familiar feline]" (Richter 810). These elements become very important when we move into deconstruction in the Postmodernism resource. Peirce also influenced the semiotic school of structuralist theory that uses sign systems. Sign Systems The discipline of semiotics plays an important role in structuralist literary theory and cultural studies. Semioticians "...appl[y] structuralist insights to the study of...sign systems...a non-linguistic object or behavior...that can be analyzed as if it were a language" (Tyson 205). Specifically, "...semiotics examines the ways non-linguistic objects and behaviors 'tell' us something. For example, the picture of the reclining blond beauty in the skin-tight, black velvet dress on the billboard...'tells' us that those who drink this whiskey (presumably male) will be attractive to...beautiful women like the one displayed here" (Tyson 205). Lastly, Richter states, "semiotics takes off from Peirce - for whom language is one of numerous sign systems - and structuralism takes off from Saussure, for whom language was the sign system par excellence" (810). Typical questions: Using a specific structuralist framework (like Frye's mythoi)...how should the text be classified in terms of its genre? In other words, what patterns exist within the text that make it a part of other works like it? Using a specific structuralist framework...analyze the text's narrative operations...can you speculate about the relationship between the...[text]... and the culture from which the text emerged? In other words, what patterns exist within the text that make it a product of a larger culture? What patterns exist within the text that connect it to the larger "human" experience? In other words, can we connect patterns and elements within the text to other texts from other cultures to map similarities that tell us more about the common human experience? This is a liberal humanist move that assumes that since we are all human, we all share basic human commonalities What rules or codes of interpretation must be internalized in order to 'make sense' of the text? What are the semiotics of a given category of cultural phenomena, or 'text,' such as high-school football games, television and/or magazine ads for a particular brand of perfume...or even media coverage of an historical event? (Tyson 225) Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory: Charles Sanders Peirce Ferdinand de Saussure - Course in General Linguistics, 1923 Claude Lévi-Strauss - The Elementary Structure of Kinship, 1949; "The Structural Study of Myth," 1955 Northrop Frye - Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays, 1957 Noam Chomsky - Syntactic Structures, 1957; Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, 1965 Roland Barthes - Critical Essays, 1964; Mythologies, 1957; S/Z, 1970; Image, Music, Text, 1977 Emberto Eco - The Role of the Reader, 1979 Contributors:Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins.Summary: This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy. Post-Structuralism, Deconstruction, Postmodernism (1966-present) Note: Structuralism, semiotics, and post-structuralism are some of the most complex literary theories to understand. Please be patient. The Center Cannot Hold This approach concerns itself with the ways and places where systems, frameworks, definitions, and certainties break down. Post-structuralism maintains that frameworks and systems, for example the structuralist systems explained in the Structuralist area, are merely fictitious constructs and that they cannot be trusted to develop meaning or to give order. In fact, the very act of seeking order or a singular Truth (with a capital T) is absurd because there exists no unified truth. Post-structuralism holds that there are many truths, that frameworks must bleed, and that structures must become unstable or decentered. Moreover, post-structuralism is also concerned with the power structures or hegemonies and power and how these elements contribute to and/or maintain structures to enforce hierarchy. Therefore, post-structural theory carries implications far beyond literary criticism. What Does Your Meaning Mean? By questioning the process of developing meaning, post-structural theory strikes at the very heart of philosophy and reality and throws knowledge making into what Jacques Derrida called "freeplay": "The concept of centered structure...is contradictorily coherent...the concept of centered structure is in fact the concept of a freeplay which is constituted upon a fundamental immobility and a reassuring certitude, which is itself beyond the reach of the freeplay" (qtd. in Richter, 878-879). Derrida first posited these ideas in 1966 at Johns Hopkins University, when he delivered ?Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences?: "Perhaps something has occurred in the history of the concept of structure that could be called an 'event,' if this loaded word did not entail a meaning which it is precisely the function of structural-or structuralist-thought to reduce or to suspect. But let me use the term ?event? anyway, employing it with caution and as if in quotation marks. In this sense, this event will have the exterior form of a rupture and a redoubling? (qtd. in Richter, 878). In his presentation, Derrida challenged structuralism's most basic ideas. Can Language Do That? Post-structural theory can be tied to a move against Modernist/Enlightenment ideas (philosophers: Immanuel Kant, Réne Descartes, John Locke, etc.) and Western religious beliefs (neo-Platonism, Catholicism, etc.). An early pioneer of this resistance was philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In his essay, ?On Truth and Lies in an Extra-moral Sense? (1873), Nietzsche rejects even the very basis of our knowledge making, language, as a reliable system of communication: ?The various languages, juxtaposed, show that words are never concerned with truth, never with adequate expression...? (248). Below is an example, adapted from the Tyson text, of some language freeplay and a simple form of deconstruction: Time (noun) flies (verb) like an arrow (adverb clause) = Time passes quickly. Time (verb) flies (object) like an arrow (adverb clause) = Get out your stopwatch and time the speed of flies as you would time an arrow's flight. Time flies (noun) like (verb) an arrow (object) = Time flies are fond of arrows (or at least of one particular arrow). So, post-structuralists assert that if we cannot trust language systems to convey truth, the very bases of truth are unreliable and the universe - or at least the universe we have constructed - becomes unraveled or de-centered. Nietzsche uses language slip as a base to move into the slip and shift of truth as a whole: ?What is truth? ?truths are an illusion about which it has been forgotten that they are illusions...? (On Truth and Lies 250). This returns us to the discussion in the Structuralist area regarding signs, signifiers, and signified. Essentially, post-structuralism holds that we cannot trust the sign = signifier + signified formula, that there is a breakdown of certainty between sign/signifier, which leaves language systems hopelessly inadequate for relaying meaning so that we are (returning to Derrida) in eternal freeplay or instability. What's Left? Important to note, however, is that deconstruction is not just about tearing down - this is a common misconception. Derrida, in "Signature Event Context," addressed this limited view of post-structural theory: "Deconstruction cannot limit or proceed immediately to a neutralization: it must?practice an overturning of the classical opposition and a general displacement of the system. It is only on this condition that deconstruction will provide itself the means with which to intervene in the field of oppositions that it criticizes, which is also a field of nondiscursive forces" (328). Derrida reminds us that through deconstruction we can identify the in-betweens and the marginalized to begin interstitial knowledge building. Modernism vs Postmodernism With the resistance to traditional forms of knowledge making (science, religion, language), inquiry, communication, and building meaning take on different forms to the post-structuralist. We can look at this difference as a split between Modernism and Postmodernism. The table below, excerpted from theorist Ihab Hassan's The Dismemberment of Orpheus (1998), offers us a way to make sense of some differences between modernism, dominated by Enlightenment ideas, and postmodernism, a space of freeplay and discourse. Keep in mind that even the author, Hassan, "...is quick to point out how the dichotomies are themselves insecure, equivocal" (Harvey 42). Though post-structuralism is uncomfortable with binaries, Hassan provides us with some interesting contrasts to consider: Post-Structuralism and Literature If we are questioning/resisting the methods we use to build knowledge (science, religion, language), then traditional literary notions are also thrown into freeplay. These include the narrative and the author: Narrative The narrative is a fiction that locks readers into interpreting text in a single, chronological manner that does not reflect our experiences. Postmodern texts may not adhere to traditional notions of narrative. For example, in his seminal work, Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs explodes the traditional narrative structure and critiques almost everything Modern: modern government, modern medicine, modern law-enforcement. Other examples of authors playing with narrative include John Fowles; in the final sections of The French Lieutenant's Woman, Fowles steps outside his narrative to speak with the reader directly. Moreover, grand narratives are resisted. For example, the belief that through science the human race will improve is questioned. In addition, metaphysics is questioned. Instead, postmodern knowledge building is local, situated, slippery, and self-critical (i.e. it questions itself and its role). Because post-structural work is self-critical, post-structural critics even look for ways texts contradict themselves (see typical questions below). Author The author is displaced as absolute author(ity), and the reader plays a role in interpreting the text and developing meaning (as best as possible) from the text. In ?The Death of the Author,? Roland Barthes argues that the idea of singular authorship is a recent phenomenon. Barthes explains that the death of the author shatters Modernist notions of authority and knowledge building (145). Lastly, he states that once the author is dead and the Modernist idea of singular narrative (and thus authority) is overturned, texts become plural, and the interpretation of texts becomes a collaborative process between author and audience: ?...a text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue...but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader? (148). Barthes ends his essay by empowering the reader: ?Classical criticism has never paid any attention to the reader...the writer is the only person in literature?it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author? (148). Typical questions: How is language thrown into freeplay or questioned in the work? For example, note how Anthony Burgess plays with language (Russian vs English) in A Clockwork Orange, or how Burroughs plays with names and language in Naked Lunch. How does the work undermine or contradict generally accepted truths? How does the author (or a character) omit, change, or reconstruct memory and identity? How does a work fulfill or move outside the established conventions of its genre? How does the work deal with the separation (or lack thereof) between writer, work, and reader? What ideology does the text seem to promote? What is left out of the text that if included might undermine the goal of the work? If we changed the point of view of the text - say from one character to another, or multiple characters - how would the story change? Whose story is not told in the text? Who is left out and why might the author have omitted this character's tale? Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory: Theorists Immanuel Kant - "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?", 1784 (as a baseline to understand what Nietzsche was resisting) Friedrich Nietzsche - ?On Truth and Lies in an Extra-moral Sense," 1873; The Gay Science, 1882; Thus Spoke Zarathustra, A Book for All and None, 1885 Jacques Derrida - "Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences," 1966; Of Grammatology, 1967; "Signature Even Context," 1972 Roland Barthes - "The Death of the Author," 1967 Deleuze and Guattari - "Rhizome," 1976 Jean-François Lyotard - The Postmodern Condition, 1979 Michele Foucault - The Foucault Reader, 1984 Stephen Toulmin - Cosmopolis, 1990 Martin Heidegger - Basic Writings, 1993 Paul Cilliers - Complexity and Postmodernity, 1998 Ihab Hassan - The Dismemberment of Orpheus, 1998; From Postmodernism to Postmodernity: The Local/Global Context, 2001 Postmodern Literature William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch, 1959 Angela Carter - Burning Your Boats, stories from 1962-1993 (first published as a collection in 1995) Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School, 1978 Paul Auster - City of Glass (volume one of the New York City Trilogy), 1985 (as a graphic novel published by Neon Lit, a division of Avon Books, 1994) Lynne Tillman - Haunted Houses, 1987 David Wojnarowicz - The Waterfront Journals, 1996 Contributors:Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins.Summary: This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy. New Historicism, Cultural Studies (1980s-present) It's All Relative... This school, influenced by structuralist and post-structuralist theories, seeks to reconnect a work with the time period in which it was produced and identify it with the cultural and political movements of the time (Michel Foucault's concept of épistème). New Historicism assumes that every work is a product of the historic moment that created it. Specifically, New Criticism is "...a practice that has developed out of contemporary theory, particularly the structuralist realization that all human systems are symbolic and subject to the rules of language, and the deconstructive realization that there is no way of positioning oneself as an observer outside the closed circle of textuality" (Richter 1205). A helpful way of considering New Historical theory, Tyson explains, is to think about the retelling of history itself: "...questions asked by traditional historians and by new historicists are quite different...traditional historians ask, 'What happened?' and 'What does the event tell us about history?' In contrast, new historicists ask, 'How has the event been interpreted?' and 'What do the interpretations tell us about the interpreters?'" (278). So New Historicism resists the notion that "...history is a series of events that have a linear, causal relationship: event A caused event B; event B caused event C; and so on" (Tyson 278). New historicists do not believe that we can look at history objectively, but rather that we interpret events as products of our time and culture and that "...we don't have clear access to any but the most basic facts of history...our understanding of what such facts mean...is...strictly a matter of interpretation, not fact" (279). Moreover, New Historicism holds that we are hopelessly subjective interpreters of what we observe. Typical questions: What language/characters/events present in the work reflect the current events of the author?s day? Are there words in the text that have changed their meaning from the time of the writing? How are such events interpreted and presented? How are events' interpretation and presentation a product of the culture of the author? Does the work's presentation support or condemn the event? Can it be seen to do both? How does this portrayal criticize the leading political figures or movements of the day? How does the literary text function as part of a continuum with other historical/cultural texts from the same period...? How can we use a literary work to "map" the interplay of both traditional and subversive discourses circulating in the culture in which that work emerged and/or the cultures in which the work has been interpreted? How does the work consider traditionally marginalized populations? Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory: Michel Foucault - The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences, 1970; Language, Counter-memory, Practice, 1977 Clifford Geertz - The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973; "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight," 1992 Hayden White - Metahistory, 1974; "The Politics of Historical Interpretation: Discipline and De-Sublimation," 1982 Stephen Greenblatt - Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, 1980 Pierre Bourdieu - Outline of a Theory of Practice, 1977; Homo Academicus, 1984; The Field of Cultural Production, 1993 Contributors:Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins.Summary: This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy. Post-Colonial Criticism (1990s-present) History is Written by the Victors Post-colonial criticism is similar to cultural studies, but it assumes a unique perspective on literature and politics that warrants a separate discussion. Specifically, post-colonial critics are concerned with literature produced by colonial powers and works produced by those who were/are colonized. Post-colonial theory looks at issues of power, economics, politics, religion, and culture and how these elements work in relation to colonial hegemony (western colonizers controlling the colonized). Therefore, a post-colonial critic might be interested in works such as Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe where colonial "...ideology [is] manifest in Crusoe's colonialist attitude toward the land upon which he's shipwrecked and toward the black man he 'colonizes' and names Friday" (Tyson 377). In addition, post-colonial theory might point out that "...despite Heart of Darkness's (Joseph Conrad) obvious anti-colonist agenda, the novel points to the colonized population as the standard of savagery to which Europeans are contrasted" (Tyson 375). Post-colonial criticism also takes the form of literature composed by authors that critique Euro-centric hegemony. A Unique Perspective on Empire Seminal post-colonial writers such as Nigerian author Chinua Achebe and Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o have written a number of stories recounting the suffering of colonized people. For example, in Things Fall Apart, Achebe details the strife and devastation that occurred when British colonists began moving inland from the Nigerian coast. Rather than glorifying the exploratory nature of European colonists as they expanded their sphere of influence, Achebe narrates the destructive events that led to the death and enslavement of thousands of Nigerians when the British imposed their Imperial government. In turn, Achebe points out the negative effects (and shifting ideas of identity and culture) caused by the imposition of western religion and economics on Nigerians during colonial rule. Power, Hegemony, and Literature Post-colonial criticism also questions the role of the western literary canon and western history as dominant forms of knowledge making. The terms "first-world," "second world," "third world" and "fourth world" nations are critiqued by post-colonial critics because they reinforce the dominant positions of western cultures populating first world status. This critique includes the literary canon and histories written from the perspective of first-world cultures. So, for example, a post-colonial critic might question the works included in "the canon" because the canon does not contain works by authors outside western culture. Moreover, the authors included in the canon often reinforce colonial hegemonic ideology, such as Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Western critics might consider Heart of Darkness an effective critique of colonial behavior. But post-colonial theorists and authors might disagree with this perspective: "...as Chinua Achebe observes, the novel's condemnation of European is based on a definition of Africans as savages: beneath their veneer of civilization, the Europeans are, the novel tells us, as barbaric as the Africans. And indeed, Achebe notes, the novel portrays Africans as a pre-historic mass of frenzied, howling, incomprehensible barbarians..." (Tyson 374-375). Typical questions: How does the literary text, explicitly or allegorically, represent various aspects of colonial oppression? What does the text reveal about the problematics of post-colonial identity, including the relationship between personal and cultural identity and such issues as double consciousness and hybridity? What person(s) or groups does the work identify as "other" or stranger? How are such persons/groups described and treated? What does the text reveal about the politics and/or psychology of anti-colonialist resistance? What does the text reveal about the operations of cultural difference - the ways in which race, religion, class, gender, sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and customs combine to form individual identity - in shaping our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world in which we live? How does the text respond to or comment upon the characters, themes, or assumptions of a canonized (colonialist) work? Are there meaningful similarities among the literatures of different post-colonial populations? How does a literary text in the Western canon reinforce or undermine colonialist ideology through its representation of colonialization and/or its inappropriate silence about colonized peoples? (Tyson 378-379) Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory: Criticism Edward Said - Orientalism, 1978; Culture and Imperialism, 1994 Kamau Braithwaite - The History of the Voice, 1979 Gayatri Spivak - In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics, 1987 Dominick LaCapra - The Bounds of Race: Perspectives on Hegemony and Resistance, 1991 Homi Bhabha - The Location of Culture, 1994 Literature and non-fiction Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart, 1958 Ngugi wa Thiong'o - The River Between, 1965 Sembene Ousman - God's Bits of Wood, 1962 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - Heat and Dust, 1975 Buchi Emecheta - The Joys of Motherhood, 1979 Keri Hulme - The Bone People, 1983 Robertson Davies - What's Bred in the Bone, 1985 Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day, 1988 Bharati Mukherjee - Jasmine, 1989 Jill Ker Conway - The Road from Coorain, 1989 Helena Norberg-Hodge - Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, 1991 Michael Ondaatje - The English Patient, 1992 Gita Mehta - A River Sutra, 1993 Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things, 1997 Patrick Chamoiseau - Texaco, 1997 Contributors:Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins.Summary: This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy. Feminist Criticism (1960s-present) S/he Feminist criticism is concerned with "...the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women" (Tyson). This school of theory looks at how aspects of our culture are inherently patriarchal (male dominated) and "...this critique strives to expose the explicit and implicit misogyny in male writing about women" (Richter 1346). This misogyny, Tyson reminds us, can extend into diverse areas of our culture: "Perhaps the most chilling example...is found in the world of modern medicine, where drugs prescribed for both sexes often have been tested on male subjects only" (83). Feminist criticism is also concerned with less obvious forms of marginalization such as the exclusion of women writers from the traditional literary canon: "...unless the critical or historical point of view is feminist, there is a tendency to under-represent the contribution of women writers" (Tyson 82-83). Common Space in Feminist Theories Though a number of different approaches exist in feminist criticism, there exist some areas of commonality. This list is excerpted from Tyson: Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which they are kept so In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values All of western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for example, in the biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and death in the world While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender (masculine or feminine) All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate goal to change the world by prompting gender equality Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously aware of these issues or not (91). Feminist criticism has, in many ways, followed what some theorists call the three waves of feminism: First Wave Feminism - late 1700s-early 1900's: writers like Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792) highlight the inequalities between the sexes. Activists like Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull contribute to the women's suffrage movement, which leads to National Universal Suffrage in 1920 with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment Second Wave Feminism - early 1960s-late 1970s: building on more equal working conditions necessary in America during World War II, movements such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), formed in 1966, cohere feminist political activism. Writers like Simone de Beauvoir (Le deuxième sexe, 1972) and Elaine Showalter established the groundwork for the dissemination of feminist theories dove-tailed with the American Civil Rights movement Third Wave Feminism - early 1990s-present: resisting the perceived essentialist (over generalized, over simplified) ideologies and a white, heterosexual, middle class focus of second wave feminism, third wave feminism borrows from post-structural and contemporary gender and race theories (see below) to expand on marginalized populations' experiences. Writers like Alice Walker work to "...reconcile it [feminism] with the concerns of the black community...[and] the survival and wholeness of her people, men and women both, and for the promotion of dialog and community as well as for the valorization of women and of all the varieties of work women perform" (Tyson 97). Typical questions: How is the relationship between men and women portrayed? What are the power relationships between men and women (or characters assuming male/female roles)? How are male and female roles defined? What constitutes masculinity and femininity? How do characters embody these traits? Do characters take on traits from opposite genders? How so? How does this change others? reactions to them? What does the work reveal about the operations (economically, politically, socially, or psychologically) of patriarchy? What does the work imply about the possibilities of sisterhood as a mode of resisting patriarchy? What does the work say about women's creativity? What does the history of the work's reception by the public and by the critics tell us about the operation of patriarchy? What role the work play in terms of women's literary history and literary tradition? (Tyson) Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory: Mary Wollstonecraft - A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792 Simone de Beauvoir - Le deuxième sexe, 1972 Julia Kristeva - About Chinese Women, 1977 Elaine Showalter - A Literature of Their Own, 1977; "Toward a Feminist Poetics," 1979 Deborah E. McDowell - "New Directions for Black Feminist Criticism," 1980 Alice Walker - In Search of Our Mother's Gardens, 1983 Lillian S. Robinson - "Treason out Text: Feminist Challenges to the Literary Canon," 1983 Camile Paglia - Sexual Personae: The Androgyne in Literature and Art, 1990 Contributors:Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins.Summary: This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy. Gender Studies and Queer Theory (1970s-present) Gender(s), Power, and Marginalization Gender studies and queer theory explore issues of sexuality, power, and marginalized populations (woman as other) in literature and culture. Much of the work in gender studies and queer theory, while influenced by feminist criticism, emerges from post-structural interest in fragmented, de-centered knowledge building (Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault), language (the breakdown of sign-signifier), and psychoanalysis (Lacan). A primary concern in gender studies and queer theory is the manner in which gender and sexuality is discussed: "Effective as this work [feminism] was in changing what teachers taught and what the students read, there was a sense on the part of some feminist critics that...it was still the old game that was being played, when what it needed was a new game entirely. The argument posed was that in order to counter patriarchy, it was necessary not merely to think about new texts, but to think about them in radically new ways" (Richter 1432). Therefore, a critic working in gender studies and queer theory might even be uncomfortable with the binary established by many feminist scholars between masculine and feminine: "Cixous (following Derrida in Of Grammatology) sets up a series of binary oppositions (active/passive, sun/moon...father/mother, logos/pathos). Each pair can be analyzed as a hierarchy in which the former term represents the positive and masculine and the latter the negative and feminine principle" (Richter 1433-1434). In-Betweens Many critics working with gender and queer theory are interested in the breakdown of binaries such as male and female, the in-betweens (also following Derrida's interstitial knowledge building). For example, gender studies and queer theory maintains that cultural definitions of sexuality and what it means to be male and female are in flux: "...the distinction between "masculine" and "feminine" activities and behavior is constantly changing, so that women who wear baseball caps and fatigues...can be perceived as more piquantly sexy by some heterosexual men than those women who wear white frocks and gloves and look down demurely" (Richter 1437). Moreover, Richter reminds us that as we learn more about our genetic structure, the biology of male/female becomes increasingly complex and murky: "even the physical dualism of sexual genetic structures and bodily parts breaks down when one considers those instances - XXY syndromes, natural sexual bimorphisms, as well as surgical transsexuals - that defy attempts at binary classification" (1437). Typical questions: What elements of the text can be perceived as being masculine (active, powerful) and feminine (passive, marginalized) and how do the characters support these traditional roles? What sort of support (if any) is given to elements or characters who question the masculine/feminine binary? What happens to those elements/characters? What elements in the text exist in the middle, between the perceived masculine/feminine binary? In other words, what elements exhibit traits of both (bisexual)? How does the author present the text? Is it a traditional narrative? Is it secure and forceful? Or is it more hesitant or even collaborative? What are the politics (ideological agendas) of specific gay, lesbian, or queer works, and how are those politics revealed in...the work's thematic content or portrayals of its characters? What are the poetics (literary devices and strategies) of a specific lesbian, gay, or queer works? What does the work contribute to our knowledge of queer, gay, or lesbian experience and history, including literary history? How is queer, gay, or lesbian experience coded in texts that are by writers who are apparently homosexual? What does the work reveal about the operations (socially, politically, psychologically) homophobic? How does the literary text illustrate the problematics of sexuality and sexual "identity," that is the ways in which human sexuality does not fall neatly into the separate categories defined by the words homosexual and heterosexual? Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of this theory: Luce Irigaray - Speculum of the Other Woman, 1974 Hélène Cixous - "The Laugh of the Medussa," 1976 Laura Mulvey - "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," 1975; "Afterthoughts on Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," 1981 Michele Foucault - The History of Sexuality, Volume I, 1980 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick - Epistemology of the Closet, 1994 Lee Edelman - "Homographies," 1989 Michael Warner Judith Butler - "Imitation and Gender Insubordination," 1991 Copyright ©1995-2011 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. Periods of English Literature Old English/Anglo-Saxon Period Years: 449-1066 Content: strong belief in fate juxtaposition of church and pagan worlds admiration of heroic warriors who prevail in battle express religious faith and give moral instruction through literature Style/Genres: oral tradition of literature poetry dominant genre unique verse form caesura alliteration repetition 4 beat rhythm Effect: Christianity helps literacy to spread introduces Roman alphabet to Britain oral tradition helps unite diverse peoples and their myths Historical Context: life centered around ancestral tribes or clans that ruled themselves at first the people were warriors from invading outlying areas: Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Danes later they were agricultural Key Literature/Authors: Beowulf Bede Exeter Book Middle English Period (The Medieval Period) Years: 1066-1485 Content: plays that instruct the illiterate masses in morals and religion chivalric code of honor romances religious devotion Style/Genres: oral tradition continues folk ballads mystery and miracle plays morality plays stock epithets kennings frame stories moral tales Effect: church instructs its people through the morality and miracle plays an illiterate population is able to hear and see the literature Historical Context: Crusades bring the development of a money economy for the first time in Britain trading increases dramatically as a result of the Crusades William the Conqueror crowned king in 1066 Henry III crowned king in 1154 brings a judicial system, royal courts, juries, and chivalry to Britain Key Literature/Authors: Doomsday Book L?Morte de Arthur Geoffrey Chaucer The Renaissance Years: 1485-1660 Content: world view shifts from religion and after life to one stressing the human life on earth popular theme: development of human potential popular theme: many aspects of love explored unrequited love constant love timeless love courtly love love subject to change Style/Genres: poetry sonnet drama written in verse supported by royalty tragedies, comedies, histories metaphysical poetry elaborate and unexpected metaphors called conceits Effect: commoners welcomed at some play productions (like ones at the Globe) while conservatives try to close the theaters on grounds that they promote brazen behaviors not all middle-class embrace the metaphysical poets and their abstract conceits Historical Context: War of Roses ends in 1485 and political stability arrives Printing press helps stabilize English as a language and allows more people to read a variety of literature Economy changes from farm-based to one of international trade Key Literature/Authors: William Shakespeare John Donne Cavalier Poets Metaphysical Poets Christopher Marlowe Andrew Marvell Neoclassical Period (The Restoration) Years: 1660-1798 Content: emphasis on reason and logic stresses harmony, stability, wisdom Locke: a social contract exists between the government and the people. The government governs guaranteeing ?natural rights? of life, liberty, and property Style/Genres: satire: uses irony and exaggeration to poke fun at human faults and foolishness in order to correct human behavior poetry essays letters, diaries, biographies novels Effect: emphasis on the individual belief that man is basically evil approach to life: ?the world as it should be? Historical Context: 50% of the men are functionally literate (a dramatic rise) Fenced enclosures of land cause demise of traditional village life Factories begin to spring up as industrial revolution begins Impoverished masses begin to grow as farming life declines and factories build Coffee houses?where educated men spend evenings with literary and political associates Key Literature/Authors: Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, John Bunyan Romanticism Years: 1798 ? 1832 Content: human knowledge consists of impressions and ideas formed in the individual?s mind introduction of gothic elements and terror/horror stories and novels in nature one can find comfort and peace that the man-made urbanized towns and factory environments cannot offer Style/Genres: poetry lyrical ballads Effects: evil attributed to society not to human nature human beings are basically good movement of protest: a desire for personal freedom children seen as hapless victims of poverty and exploitation Historical Context: Napoleon rises to power in France and opposes England militarily and economically gas lamps developed Tory philosophy that government should NOT interfere with private enterprise middle class gains representation in the British parliament Railroads begin to run Key Literature/Authors: Novelists: Jane Austen, Mary Shelley Poets: Robert Burns, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, John Keats Victorian Period Years: 1832-1900 Content: conflict between those in power and the common masses of laborers and the poor shocking life of sweatshops and urban poor is highlighted in literature to insist on reform country versus city life sexual discretion (or lack of it) strained coincidences romantic triangles heroines in physical danger aristocratic villains misdirected letters bigamous marriages Genres/Styles: novel becomes popular for first time; mass produced for the first time bildungsroman: ?coming of age? political novels detective novels: (Sherlock Holmes) serialized novels elegies poetry: easier to understand dramatic monologues drama: comedies of manners magazines offer stories to the masses Effect: literature begins to reach the masses Historical Context: paper becomes cheap; magazines and novels cheap to mass produce unprecedented growth of industry and business in Britain unparalleled dominance of nations, economies and trade abroad Key Literature/Authors: Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy , Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Darwin, Charlotte Bronte, Robert Browning Modern/Post Modern Period of Literature Years: 1900-1980 Content: lonely individual fighting to find peace and comfort in a world that has lost its absolute values and traditions man is nothing except what he makes of himself a belief in situational ethics?no absolute values. Decisions are based on the situation one is involved in at the moment mixing of fantasy with nonfiction; blurs lines of reality for reader loss of the hero in literature destruction made possible by technology Genres/Styles: poetry: free verse epiphanies begin to appear in literature speeches memoir novels stream of consciousness detached, unemotional, humorless present tense magic realism Effect: an approach to life: ?Seize life for the moment and get all you can out of it.? Historical Context: British Empire loses 1 million soldiers to World War I Winston Churchill leads Britain through WW II, and the Germans bomb England directly British colonies demand independence Key Literature/Authors: James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, Graham Greene, Dylan Thomas, Nadine Gordimer, George Orwell, William Butler Yeats, Bernard Shaw Contemporary Period of Literature (Post Modern Period Continued) 1980-Present Content: concern with connections between people exploring interpretations of the past open-mindedness and courage that comes from being an outsider escaping those ways of living that blind and dull the human spirit Genres/Styles: all genres represented fictional confessional/diaries 50% of contemporary fiction is written in the first person narratives: both fiction and nonfiction emotion-provoking humorous irony storytelling emphasized autobiographical essays mixing of fantasy with nonfiction; blurs lines of reality for reader Effect: too soon to tell Historical Context: a world growing smaller due to ease of communications between societies a world launching a new beginning of a century and a millennium media culture interprets values and events for individuals Key Literature/Authors: Seamus Heaney, Doris Lessing, Louis de Bernieres, Kazuo Ishiguro, Tom Stoppard, Salman Rushdie, John Le Carre, Ken Follett Periods of World Literature Adapted from: http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/periods_of_literature.html EARLY PERIODS These periods are spans of time in which literature shared intellectual, linguistic, religious, and artistic influences. In the Western tradition, the early periods of literary history are roughly as follows below: A. THE CLASSICAL PERIOD (1200 BCE-455 CE) I. HOMERIC or HEROIC PERIOD (1200-800 BCE) Greek legends are passed along orally, including Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey. This is a chaotic period of warrior-princes, wandering sea-traders, and fierce pirates. II CLASSICAL GREEK PERIOD (800-200 BCE) Greek writers and philosophers such as Gorgias, Aesop. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Euripides, and Sophocles. The fifth century (499-400 BCE) in particular is renowned as The Golden Age of Greece. This is the sophisticated period of the polls, or individual City-State, and early democracy. Some of the world's finest art, poetry, drama, architecture, and philosophy originate in Athens. III. CLASSICAL ROMAN PERIOD (200 BCE-455 CE) Greece's culture gives way to Roman power when Rome conquers Greece in 146 CE. The Roman Republic was traditionally founded in 509 BCE, but it is limited in size until later. Playwrights of this time include Plautus and Terence. After nearly 500 years as a Republic, Rome slides into dictatorship under Julius Caesar and finally into a monarchial empire under Caesar Augustus in 27 CE. This later period is known as the Roman Imperial period. Roman writers include Ovid, Horace, and Virgil. Roman philosophers include Marcus Aurelius and Lucretius. Roman rhetoricians include Cicero and Quintilian. IV. PATRISTIC PERIOD (c. 70 AD-455 CE) Early Christian writings such as Saint Augustine, Tertullian, Saint Cyprian, Saint Ambrose and Saint Jerome. This is the period in which Saint Jerome first compiled the Bible, when Christianity spread across Europe, and the Roman Empire suffered its dying convulsions. In this period, barbarians attack Rome in 410 AD and the city finally falls to them completely in 455 CE. B. THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD (455 CE-1485 CE) I. THE OLD ENGLISH (ANGLO-SAXON) PERIOD (428-l066 ) The so-called "Dark Ages" (455 CE -799 CE) occur when Rome falls and barbarian tribes move into Europe. Franks, Ostrogoths, Lombards, and Goths settle in the ruins of Europe and the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes migrate to Britain, displacing native Celts into Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Early Old English poems such as Beowulf The Wanderer, and The Seafarer originate sometime late in the Anglo-Saxon period. The Carolingian Renaissance (800- 850 CE) emerges in Europe. In central Europe, texts include early medieval grammars, encyclopedias, etc. In northern Europe, this time period marks the setting of Viking sagas. II. THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD (c. 1066-1450) In 1066, Norman French armies invade and conquer England under William I. This marks the end of the AngloSaxon hierarchy and the emergence of the Twelfth Century Renaissance (c. 1100-1200 CE). French chivalric romances--such as works by Chretien de Troyes--and French fables--such as the works of Marie de France and Jean de Mean -spread in popularity- Abelard and other humanists produce great scholastic and theological works. Late or "High" Medieval Period (c. 1200-1485 CE): This often tumultuous period is marked by the Middle English writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, the "Gawain" or "Pearl" Poet, the Wakefield Master, and William Langland. Other writers include Italian and French authors like Boccaccio, Petrarch, Dante, Christine de Pisan. C. THE RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (C. 1485-1660 CE) (The Renaissance takes place in the late 15th, 16th, and early 17th century in Britain, but somewhat earlier in Italy and the southern Europe, somewhat later in northern Europe.) I. Early Tudor Period (1485-1558): The War of the Roses ends in England with Henry Tudor (Henry VII claiming the throne. Martin Luther's split with Rome marks the emergence of Protestantism, followed by Henry VIII's Anglican schism, which creates the first Protestant church in England. Edmond Spencer is a sample poet II. Elizabethan Period (1555-1603): Queen Elizabeth saves England from both Spanish invasion and internal squabbles at home- Her reign is marked by the early work of S Marlowe, Kydd, and Sidney III. Jacobean Period (1603-1625): Shakespeare's later work, Aemilia Lanyer, Ben Jonson, John Donne. IV. Caroline Age (1625-1649): John Milton, George Herbert, Robert Herrick, the "Sons of Ben" and others write during the reign of Charles I and his Cavaliers. V. Commonwealth Period or Puritan Interregnum (1649-1660): Under Cromwell's Puritan dictatorship, we find writers like Andrew Marvell and Sir Thomas Browne. LATER PERIODS OF LITERATURE These periods are spans of time in which literature shared intellectual, linguistic, religious, and artistic influences. In the Western tradition, the later periods of literary history are roughly as follows below: D. THE ENLIGHTENMENT (NEOCLASSICAL) PERIOD (C. 1660-1790) "Neoclassical" refers to the increased influence of Classical literature upon these centuries. The Neoclassical Period is also called the "Enlightenment" due to the increased reverence for logic and disdain for superstition. The period is marked by the rise of Deism, intellectual backlash against earlier Puritanism, and America's revolution against England. I. Restoration Period (c. 1660-1700): This period marks the British king's restoration to the throne after a long period of Puritan domination in England. Its symptoms include the dominance of French and Classical influences on poetry and drama. Sample writers include John Dryden, John Lock, Sir William Temple, and Samuel Pepys, and Aphra Behn in England. Abroad, representative authors include Jean Racine and Moliere. II. The Augustan Age (c. 1700-1750): This period is marked by the imitation of Virgil and Horace's literature in English letters. The principle English writers include Addison, Steele, Swift, and Alexander Pope. Abroad, Voltaire is the dominant French writer. III. The Age of Johnson (c. 1750-1790): This period marks the transition toward the upcoming Romanticism though the period is still largely neoclassical. Major writers include Dr. Samuel Johnson, Boswell, and Edward Gibbon who represent the Neoclassical tendencies, while writers like Robert Burns, Thomas Gray, Cowper, and Crabbe show movement away from the Neoclassical ideal. In America, this period is called the Colonial Period. It includes colonial and revolutionary writers like Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine. E. ROMANTIC PERIOD (C. 1790-1830) Romantic poets wrote about nature and the imagination in England_ Some Romantics include Coleridge, Blake, Keats, and Shelley in Britain and Johann von Goethe in Germany. In America, this period is called the Transcendental Period. Transcendentalists include Emerson and Thoreau. Gothic writings, (c. 1790-1890) overlap with the Romantic and Victorian periods. Writers of Gothic novels (the precursor to horror novels) include Radcliffe, Monk Lewis, and Victorians like Bram Stoker in Britain. In America, Gothic writers include Poe and Hawthorne. F. VICTORIAN PERIOD AND THE 19TH CENTURY (C. 1832-1901) Writing during the period of Queen Victoria's reign includes sentimental novels. British writers include Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, the Bronte sisters, and Jane Austen. Pre- Raphaelites like the Rossettis and William Morris, idealize and long for the morality of the medieval world. The end of the Victorian Period marked by intellectual movements of Asceticism and "the Decadence" in writings of Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. In America, Naturalist writers like Stephen Crane flourish, as do early free verse poets like Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. G. MODERN PERIOD (C. 1914-1945) In Britain, modernist writers include W. B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, Virginia Woolf, In America, the modernist period includes Robert Frost, Wilfred Owen, and Flannery O'Connor as well as the famous writers of The Lost Generation (also called the writers of The Jazz Age, 1914-1929) such as Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner. "The Harlem Renaissance" marks the rise of black writers such as Baldwin and Ellison. H. POSTMODERN PERIOD (C. 1945 ONWARD) T. S. Eliot, Morrison, Shaw, Beckett, Stoppard, Fowles, Calvino, Ginsberg, Pynchon, and other modern writers, poets, and playwrights experiment with metafiction and fragmented poetry. Multiculturalism leads to increasing canonization of non-Caucasian writers such as Langston Hughes, Sandra Cisneros, and Zora Neal Hurston. Magic Realists such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier Gunter Grass, and Salman Rushdie flourish with surrealistic writings embroidered in the conventions of realism. Writing About Prose: A Student Handbook Poor Example Strays from topic? The predominant device Updike utilizes is point of view. By telling the story through Sammy?s words and not an outsider?s, his characteristics and ideas are directly revealed to the reader [he directly reveals Sammy?s characteristics and ideas]. For example, he envisions a party at Queenie?s home where people are dressed well while drinking martinis and ?picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big glass plate.? In contrast, he has only experienced parties where ?Schlitz in tall glasses with ?They?ll Do It Every Time? cartoons stencilled [sic] on? is served. This reveals his own lack of wealth. Sammy is also naïve and disrepectful. In many stories, the central aspect of the story is revealed through the thoughts and actions of the main character. The reader may be enlightened about the feelings of that character through the author?s choice of the usage of certain stylistic devices. The character of Sammy in John Updike?s ?A&P? is one such character. The reader is enlightened of the feelings portrayed at the end of the story through the development of Sammy?s character. Style, point of view, figurative language, are used to develop the character of Sammy in John Updike?s ?A&P.? John Updike?s style, as portrayed in ?A&P,? is extremely important to the overall effect of the story. He uses simple diction, since the story is told by a nineteen-year-old boy who has not been well educated. This diction is illustrated in the passage ??records at discount of the Carribean Six or Tony Martin Sings or some such gunk you wonder they waste the wax on.? His use of slang, like ?sweet broad soft looking can,? in reference to the chubby girl?s derrier, help to reveal the thoughts, feelings and emotions of the narrator. Another such aspect of the style is figurative language. Figurative language is an important device which can be found in the story ?A&P.? ?.Though his choice of vocabulary and experience is rather limited, it is easy to see that Sammy thinks very highly of the girl?.The figurative language in the story would not be as easily passed without the point of view of the story?. Through the quote ?when my parents?.? Writing About ProseAdapted from: http://www.auroraweb.com/homework/AP12/ap12_syllabus.htm The Nature of Fiction Any experience in daily life, usual or unusual, is a story. A child in a hurry to catch a bus to school falls and breaks an arm. That is a story. An elevator breaks down, stops running between floors and imprisons four people for two hours. That, too, is a story. But these incidents are not short stories. A short story is a literary form. It requires some special doing to give it shape. An incident, whether related by word of mouth, or printed, if it is newsworthy, in a newspaper is raw, basically untreated experience. It becomes a short story when it is treated by a writer. This involves selection from the raw experiences those that best fit a conception in the mind of the writer; it requires emphases on and elaborations and contractions of experiences; it needs delineation and particularizing of character; and it demands the creation of a world in which the events occur. In addition, the raw experiences of life are ?fictionalized?; that is, the writer changes events, characters, and world to fit his view of life and his purpose in telling the story. In the hands of a skilled writer however, the changes do not distort life; they give form and meaning to life. The events, characters, and places acquire a verisimilitude, a truth to life, that arouses a sense of recognition in the reader and an acknowledgment that what is portrayed is so. The Form and Structure of Fiction It is not always easy to tell the difference between the short story and the novel. One difference has to do with length. The short story can be read swiftly. Another difference deals with subject. A short story concentrates on one central incident or one central character study. However, how does one characterize the long short stories or the short novels? Terms like novella and novelette are used to describe such works. The best way to judge the difference between short story and novel and at the same time to determine the tone or spirit of the work is to use the following guides: Let us use a quadrilateral figure to represent a work of fiction The story begins at a point in human experience; the reader becomes involved in the experiences, motivated by the skill of the writer in creating interest and suspense; the reader is led to the climax or resolution of the problems or conflicts in the story; and the story is brought to a close. Sometimes the story ends at the climax; sometimes a few loose ends are quickly gathered together; sometimes a long explanation is necessary to conclude the story. Sometimes a new experience is introduced related to the events preceding it, showing the results of the climactic event or explaining how the climactic event came to be. Sometimes a new series of events flows from the climax and culminates in a new climax. These are the shapes stories may take. If a third series of incidents needs to be added to expand further the events leading to the first climax or to recount the effects produced by the events leading to the first climax, we have moved into the realm of the novel. A typical novel is a series of experiences happening to a central character or group of central characters, each of which culminates in a climactic event. The final climactic event resolves the conflicts and the dilemmas of the characters and brings the novel to a close. The shape it takes would be the following: The Modes of Fiction The quadrilaterals may also be used to clarify certain critical classifications of novels. The experiences in serious novels may be described as good or bad. Let us use a quadrilateral this time to represent the experiences of life and let us divide the experiences into those that depict man?s goodness and those that depict man?s malevolence. We will divide the quadrilateral in half though we recognize that life is never exactly half good and half evil. The Worlds of Fiction You will encounter in your reading of fiction many varied worlds, real and unreal. Below are five types of worlds you may encounter in your readings: Reading and Analyzing In analyzing a short story or a novel, you should determine carefully the following elements: Your first concern should be the ?world? of the work. You should seek the answers to the following questions: In what kind of community does the action occur? What are the customs, the beliefs, and the values of the community? What is sacred in this society and what is held in scorn? What forms of behavior and response are expected from those who live within its boundaries? What patterns are considered atypical and therefore suspect? What institutions exist in this society and how effectively are they functioning? What disagreements and conflicts exist among the different members of this society? Are there struggles? What forms do these struggles take? Are they open or secret? As you read the work and determine the character of its world, you will be making judgments about it, first in terms of your own personal values and then in terms of esthetic, philosophical, and moral values which prevail in the world in which you live. In each of the worlds revealed to you in the literary work, you will find a number of people, the characters in the story. These people will have been affected in some way by the patterns, customs, and beliefs of this world. Their values, their relationships, their views, their actions, their successes, their failures, their adjustments, their frustrations?all these will be colored by the atmosphere in which they live, by the spoken and unspoken demands made upon them. You need to analyze the inherent personalities of the characters. You need to examine their relationships with one another and their actions and thoughts in response to the demands of these relationships and to the demands of the community. You should seek to determine the motives of their actions, especially in terms of what they are and what they hope to be or to achieve. You should be able to judge how they see themselves and how they are seen by others and determine how the narrator or author wish you to see them. By means of this analysis you should try, if possible, to arrive at a conception of the author?s view of the world he has created and of his purpose in writing the story. Every work of fiction has a narrator. When a story is told in the first person, it is velar that the narrator is not the author and that he may or may not be presenting the author?s view. Most often, he will not. But when the story is told in the third person, then it becomes a problem to learn who is telling the story. The narrator may be the author, but often he is not, and there is danger of misinterpretation in ascribing to the author the views and attitudes of the narrator. You will need to study carefully the manner in which the narrator tells the story, the extent to which he moves into the minds of the characters, the kinds of comments he makes about their thoughts and actions, the view he has of the world in which the characters move, the range and completeness of his knowledge. You will need also to ascertain whether the narrator is a character in the story or an external observer and recorder. In other words, you will need to find out the distance between author and narrator and between character and narrator. This will also help you to comprehend more thoroughly the structure of a work, the view of the author, and his purpose in writing the story. You will notice that the author?s view will be reflected in the tone that pervades the work. Look for this and see whether you can put it into words. Study also the language and imagery used by the author and the way he manages his scenes. See whether you can determine the tone from these. You should be able to detect satire, irony, humor, sentimentality, detachment, foreboding, fancy, melancholy, etc. and you should be able to refer to passages to illustrate your conclusions. A story, as you know, is a representation of life. The author has selected an experience or series of experiences out of the vast context of life and has put them into an art form. Once he has done this, he has added a dimension to this thing called life. He has given it form and a semblance of order, characteristics we may find in the world of nature through scientific investigation but which we rarely find in the blind groping of man to explain himself and his relationship to others and to the universe in which he finds himself for a short while. The writer abstracts life and fives it form. This form has unity and a coherence in that the parts selected by the author?the world, the action, the characters, the theme, the language, the imagery?all combine to produce an artistic structure. How the author of each of the works you study achieves this or fails to do this will be another of the subjects to concern us in our study of fiction. Writing Literary Essays: An Overview Purpose of Writing Literary Essays ?Writing is the sharpened, focused expression of thought and study. As you develop your writing skills, you also improve your perceptions and increase your critical faculties.? Characteristics of Good Writing Writing begins with the search for something to say?an idea. Not all ideas are equal; some are better than others, and getting good ideas is an ability that you develop the more you think and write. Unlike class discussion and conversation, writing must stick with great determination to a specific point. A finished draft is one that someone might believe was always perfect, when much thought and work went into it. The Process (Reminder: You are never committed to anything you write down. You can always revise it, rework it, or go a whole new direction.) Invention and Prewriting Reading and Thinking About the Work Take notes focused on your assignment Use the study questions in your text, if it has such questions Use a pen, pencil, or word processor as an extension of your thought. Examine all of this and Develop Central Idea(s) Brainstorming from your notes (listing and writing sentences) Develop your observations (writing paragraphs) Determine your Central Idea (choose the best) Create a Thesis Statement Draft the Essay Develop an Outline (using a scratch outline is great practice for the exam) Flesh out (use) your Outline Central idea and Thesis Statement form Introduction Topic sentences begin Body Paragraphs Revisions as Necessary Proofreading General Questions to Consider in Analyzing Literature Overview (Point of View/Narrator) Who is telling the story? How much does he know? To what extent is his vision or knowledge limited? Is the storyteller the author or is he a narrator created by the author? How much distance is there between the author and the narrator? How does the point of view affect the reader?s understanding of plot, character and theme? (Plot/Structure) What are the raw facts of the story? How has the author embellished the raw facts? Identify the complications, conflicts, rising action and climax. (Symbolism) What objects or people appear in the story to represent more than their basic elements or reality? What, in your view, do they represent? (Theme) What purpose does the author have in telling the story? What are his intentions? How do you determine what his intentions are? Are his intentions clear or must they be inferred from the details and the emphases of the story? (Character) What is the author?s view of his characters? How do you know this? How do the characters view one another? How do you know this? (Tone) What is the author?s view of life? What evidence in the story supports your conclusions about the author?s philosophy? (Theme/Tone) What is the world of the story? Is it a real or an unreal one? What are the basic values that govern this world? How do these values affect the actions, beliefs, decisions of the characters? What is the author?s view of this world? General Questions for Analysis and Evaluation of Literature Adapted from: Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense by Lawrence Perine PLOT Who is the protagonist of the story? What are the conflicts? Are they physical, intellectual, moral, or emotional? Is the main conflict between forces sharply differentiated as good and evil, or is it more subtle and complex? Does the plot have unity? Are all the episodes relevant to the total meaning or effect of the story? Does each incident grow logically out of the preceding incident and lead naturally to the next? Is the ending happy, unhappy, or indeterminate? Is it fairly achieved? What use does the story make of chance and coincidence? Are these occurrences used to initiate, to complicate, or to resolve the story? How improbable are they? How is suspense created in the story? Is the interest confined to "What happens next?" or are larger concerns involved? Can you find examples of mystery? Of dilemma? What use does the story make of surprise? Are the surprises achieved fairly? Do they serve a significant purpose? Do they divert the reader's attention from weaknesses in the story? To what extent is this a "formula" story? CHARACTERS What means does the author use to reveal character? Are the characters sufficiently dramatized? What use is made of character contrasts? Are the characters consistent in their actions? Adequately motivated? Plausible? Does the author successfully avoid stock characters? Is each character fully enough developed to justify its role in the story? Are the main characters round or flat? Are any of the characters a developing character? If so, is the change a large or a small one? Is it a plausible change for such a person? Is it sufficiently motivated? Is it given sufficient time? THEME Does the story have a theme? What is it? Is it implicit or explicit? Does the theme reinforce or oppose popular notions of life? Does it furnish a new insight or refresh or deepen an old theme? POINT OF VIEW What point of view does the story use? Is it consistent in its use of this point of view? If shifts are made, are they justified? What advantages has the chosen point of view? Does it furnish any clues as to the purpose of the story? If the point of view is that of one of the characters, does this character have any limitations that affect his interpretation of events or persons? Does the author use point of view primarily to reveal or conceal? Is important information known to the focal character ever unfairly withheld? SYMBOL AND IRONY Does the story make use of symbols? If so, do the symbols carry or merely reinforce the meaning of the story? Does the story anywhere utilize irony of situation? Dramatic irony? Verbal irony? What functions do the ironies serve? EMOTION AND HUMOR Does the story aim directly at an emotional effect, or is emotion merely its natural by-product? Is the emotion sufficiently dramatized? Is the author anywhere guilty of sentimentality? FANTASY Does the story employ fantasy? If so, what is the initial assumption? Does the story operate logically from this assumption? Is the fantasy employed for its own sake or to express some human truth? If the latter, what truth? GENERAL Is the primary interest of the story in plot, character, theme, or some other element? What contribution to the story is made by its setting? Is the particular setting essential, or could the story have happened anywhere? What are the characteristics of the author's style? Are they appropriate to the nature of the story? What light is thrown on the story by its title? Do all the elements of the story work together to support a central purpose? Is any part irrelevant or inappropriate? What do you conceive to be the story's central purpose? How fully has it achieved that purpose? Does the story offer chiefly escape or interpretation? How significant is the story's purpose? Does the story gain or lose on a second reading? Suggestions about Writing a Prose Passage for the ?C? Test Adapted from: Casson, Allan. English Literature and Composition: Preparation Guide. (Cliffs Notes-ISBN0-8220-2305-9) Nadel, Max. How to Prepare for the Advanced Placement Examination in English. (Barron?s-ISBN 0-8120-2992-5) Rozakis, Laurie. Exam in English: Literature and Composition. (ARCO-ISBN 0-13-011629-7) Make sure you understand the questions and that you answer all parts of the question in your essay. When reading the scoring guide for this question, I have noted that the best essays answers all parts of the question while the poorer essay neglect to address one or two parts of the questions. One good way to prepare for this part of the Exam is to become familiar with questions from previous prose passage questions. Make sure you understand the terminology. Do not be in a hurry to begin writing. A well-thought-out, well-organized, and specific essay of three paragraphs will score higher than a disorganized and repetitive essay two or three times as long. I would avoid long introductory paragraphs that merely repeat the question or outline what you will do in the next three paragraphs. a final paragraph that only repeats what you have already said is not necessary. If you answer the question the exam has put, you don?t need a cute title, a dramatic opening, or a snazzy close. The question often asks you to identify an ?attitude,? a ?state of mind,? or a ?tone.? A common mistake is the assumption that the answer requires only one word, that there is only one attitude, one state of mind, or one tone. More often than not, the best answer is the one that sees complexity or a change. The good student sees that, though an author endorses a character or a position, he or she may do so with reservations. Chances are, if the answer is too simple, you?re missing something. On the essay exams, if an answer is obvious, everyone will get it right, and the readers will be unable to discriminate among the papers. Almost every prose passage questions begins with the injunction ?Read the following passage carefully.? Obey this order. All your care in understanding what the question asks you to do is useless if you don?t read the passage well enough to give convincing answers. Separate narrator from author and from character. Try to determine whether there is a relationship between narrator and character, and, if so, what its nature is. Study the behavior, actions, thoughts, and words of the characters to determine their states and their reactions to where they are and with whom they are or with whom they are near. Scrutinize the language and the imagery for the narrator?s attitude, for the characters? attitudes, for tone, and for revelations of unexpressed emotions and thoughts. Dig beneath the surface of statements for insights into true feelings. Observe the environment and the way it is seen for further comprehension of problems, relationships, and feelings. How characters perceive their worlds will tell you who they are and what is moving them. The most common question on the prose passage will ask you to read a prose selection and discuss how the author?s style reveals the theme of the work. You will be expected to consider various elements of style such as tone, diction, figurative language, sentence length and variety, detail, and so forth. This means that you will have to take the passage ?apart? and look at each section very carefully and then put it back together and reconsider the meaning. Organization is important, and you should plan how you will organize your essay about a prose passage. There is no right or wrong way of organization. What the reader looks for is organization. Some students organize their paragraphs around the items from the question while others divide the passage into sections and discuss that section in terms of the question. You should include in your essay specific examples from the passage that support the points you are making. Again, the readers are not looking for a magic number of examples, but they are looking for essays that are adequately developed. Remember when you quote from the passage to enclose the quoted material within quotation marks. You may include the line numbers but that is not necessary. The quoted material should fit smoothly into your own prose. If you change the quoted prose to fit your prose, the change is indicated in brackets [ ]. You may also use the ellipsis (three periods . . .) to indicate that you have omitted words in the quotation. Avoid overuse of the ellipsis. Essay Preparation The MLA Handbook serves as the designated guide for the writing assignments. Teachers evaluate students? writing samples by using a set of carefully constructed practices of composition and documentation. Most particularly, Phyllis Franklin writes in the forward to the MLA Handbook that it ?provides a comprehensive picture of how research papers are created.? While the primary goal of this source is a student?s successful completion of a research paper, it also provides useful information in the matters of form and style for other types of composition. Margins Except for page numbers, leave margins of one inch at the top and bottom and on both sides of the text. Indent the first word of a paragraph one-half inch (or five spaces from the left margin). Indent set-off quotations one inch (or ten spaces) from the left margin. Spacing A composition must be double-spaced throughout, including quotations, notes, and the list of works cited. In a written paper, skip every other ruled line. Title Page Do not use a title page Page One: Heading and Title Beginning one inch from the top of the first page and flush with the left margin, type your name, your instructor?s name, essay title, and the date on separate lines, double-spacing between the lines. Double-space again and center the title. Double-space also between the lines of the title. Do not underline your title, put it in quotation marks, or type it in all capital letters. Underline only the words that you would underline in the text. Capitalize the first words and all other words in the title except articles (a, and, or the), prepositions (to, with, in, on, etc.), and conjunctions (and, but, or, not, etc.). Do not use punctuation marks after the title unless a question mark or an exclamation point is needed. Specific Directions for Handwritten Papers Write only on the front of a page. Use 8 ½ x 11 inch lined, white paper with clean edges ? no frazzles. Follow the MLA Handbook for form and style. Use blue or black ink for all final drafts. Be neat and write legibly. Keep a copy of the paper. Specific Directions for Typed Papers Type only on the front of a page. Use 8 ½ x 11 inch paper of good quality. Use a high quality printer. Choose a standard, easily readable typeface ? 12 point Times New Roman is preferred. Turn off the automatic hyphenation feature. Keep a backup copy on disk. Body of Composition Double-space between the title and the first line of the text. Indent all paragraphs five letter spaces. At the end of a line, hyphenate words only between syllables. Do not carry over endings like ?ed, -ing, etc. Page Numbers Number all page numbers consecutively throughout the research paper in the upper right-hand corner, one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin. Begin pagination on Page 1 of the composition and continue numbering through the last page, including the ?Works Cited? page when one is needed. Type your last name before the page number, as a precaution in case of misplaced pages. Do not use the abbreviation p. before a page number or add a period, a hyphen, or any other mark or symbol. Position the first line of text one inch from the top of the page. Proof Reading Proofread your finished product carefully for omitted words and other errors. Make the necessary corrections in your final, clean copy. Do not use the margins or write a change below the line it affects. If any corrections on any page are numerous or substantial, retype or rewrite that page. Binding Use only staples to secure your papers. DO NOT USE PLASTIC BINDERS. General Composition Reminders Create a topic sentence for a paragraph or a thesis statement for an essay. Never write phrases like ?In this paper I will show? or ?I think.? Determine the best method(s) of support for your writing assignment such as facts, statistics, examples, definition, analogy, process, cause and effect. Avoid passive voice, sentence fragments, and subject-verb disagreement. Use only second person pronoun references in process papers or ?how-to? papers. Never put a comma before the subordinating conjunction because. When you have written the conjunction and, consider what you have joined together: --just two words, phrases, or subordinate clauses ? use no comma. --three or more words, phrases, or subordinate clauses, use a comma to separate each item in the series. --two independent clauses, use a comma before and or any of the coordinating conjunctions (but, or, not for, so, yet). Use a comma after introductory words such as First, Next, Therefore, In addition, etc., introductory participial phrases (Running down the stairs, the little girl fell.); introductory adverb clauses beginning subordinate conjunctions (Since, When, If, Because, etc.). Only use a comma between adjectives of EQUAL RANK! This means two words can be reversed without any change in the meaning. Do not run together independent clauses. Use a comma and a coordinating conjunction, a semicolon, or a period and a capital letter to join independent clauses. Avoid beginning your sentences with so, but, or and. These words are conjunctions, not transitional words. Check for subject-verb agreement and for pronoun-antecedent agreement. Write in a consistent tense. For example, if you begin a paper in present tense, do not shift to past tense verbs later in the paper. Literary-based Compositions In the writing of an analytical paper, support your topic sentence or thesis statement by using direct quotes from the text, references to specifics in the narrative, and/or quotes or paraphrases from secondary sources. Avoid plot summaries. Do not retell the story. Use specific examples to support points you have already established. Introduce all direct quotes smoothly and include the page on which the passage appears in the text. Note that the page number is in the parentheses at the end of the sentence before the period. Use formal language. Avoid slang terms, sexist language, and clichés. Use literary present tense throughout the composition except for direct quotations, which may be in the past tense. After first mention of the author?s name or the authority?s name, use that individual?s last name only. Do not confuse the author with the speaker. Do not use first person references such as ?I think? or ?I believe.? Each body paragraph should have a topic sentence that deals with only one main idea. Create an original title; do not use the author?s title. Avoid statements that are too obvious: ?The Monkey?s Paw? is a short story?. Joe is a character?. This story is very interesting ?. I feel as if?. _____ is a prime example of ____?. Do not add anything to the text or to the authority. College Writing Adapted from: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/ What this handout is about... This handout will help you figure out what your college instructors expect when they give you a writing assignment. It will tell you how and why to move beyond the five-paragraph themes you learned to write in high school and start writing essays that are more analytical and more flexible. What is a five-paragraph theme? Public school teachers sometimes call writing assignments a "five-paragraph theme"; in other places, it's a "keyhole essay." Either way, it's hourglass-shaped: it begins and ends with something general, and it narrows down in the middle to discuss specifics, and then branches out to more general comments at the end. In a classic five-paragraph theme, the first paragraph starts with a general statement and ends with a thesis statement containing three "points"; each body paragraph discusses one of those "points" in turn; and the final paragraph sums up what the student has written. Why do high schools teach the five-paragraph theme? The five-paragraph theme is a good way to learn how to write an academic essay. It's a simplified version of academic writing that requires you to state an idea and support it with evidence. Setting a limit of five paragraphs narrows your options and forces you to master the basics of organization. Furthermore-and for many high school teachers, this is the crucial issue-many state-mandated end-of-grade writing tests, exams, and the SAT II writing test reward writers who follow the five-paragraph theme format. Writing a five-paragraph theme is like riding a bicycle with training wheels; it's a device that helps you learn. That doesn't mean you should use it forever. Once you can write well without it, you can cast it off and never look back. Why don't five-paragraph themes work well for college writing? The way college instructors teach is different from high school, and so is what they expect from you. While high school courses tend to focus on the who, what, when, and where of the things you study-just the facts, ma'am-college courses ask you to think about the how and the why. You can do very well in high school by studying hard and memorizing a lot of facts. Although college instructors still expect you to know the facts, they really care about how you analyze and interpret those facts and why you think those facts matter. Once you know what college instructors are looking for, you can see some of the reasons why five-paragraph themes don't work so well for college writing: Five-paragraph themes often do a poor job of setting up a framework, or context, that helps the reader understand what the author is trying to say. Students learn in high school that their introduction should begin with something general. College instructors call these "dawn of time" introductions. For example, a student asked to discuss the causes of the Hundred Years War might begin, "Since the dawn of time, humankind has been plagued by war." The student will fare better with a more concrete sentence directly related to what you are going to say in the rest of the paper-for example, a sentence such as "In the early 14th century, a civil war broke out in Flanders that would soon threaten Western Europe's balance of power." If you are accustomed to writing vague opening lines and need them to get started, go ahead and write them, but delete them before you turn in the final draft. For more on this subject, see our handout Introductions. Five-paragraph themes often lack an argument. Because college courses focus on analyzing and interpreting rather than on memorizing, college instructors expect writers not only to know the facts but also to make an argument about the facts. The best five-paragraph themes may do this. However, the typical five-paragraph theme has a "listing" thesis e.g. "I will show how the Romans lost their empire in Britain and Gaul by examining military technology, religion, and politics," rather than an argumentative one, e.g. "The Romans lost their empire in Britain and Gaul because their opponents' military technology caught up with their own at the same time as religious upheaval and political conflict were weakening the sense of common purpose on the home front." For more on this subject, see our handout Effective Academic Writing: The Argument. Five-paragraph themes are often repetitive. Writers who follow the model tend to repeat sentences or phrases from the introduction in topic sentences for paragraphs, rather than writing topic sentences that tie their three "points" together into a coherent argument. Repetitive writing doesn't help to move an argument along, and it's no fun to read. Five-paragraph themes often lack "flow;" that is, they don't make smooth transitions from one thought to the next. The "listing" thesis statement encourages writers to treat each paragraph and its main idea as a separate entity, rather than to draw connections between paragraphs and ideas in order to develop an argument. Five-paragraph themes often have weak conclusions that merely summarize what's gone before and don't say anything new or interesting. In our handout on Conclusions, we call these "that's my story and I'm sticking to it" conclusions: they do nothing to engage readers and make them glad they read the essay. Most of us can remember an introduction and three body paragraphs without a repetitive summary at the end to help us out. Five-paragraph themes don't have any counterpart in the real world. Read your favorite newspaper or magazine; look through the readings your professors assign you; listen to political speeches or sermons. Can you find anything that looks or sounds like a five-paragraph theme? One of the important skills that college can teach you, above and beyond the subject matter of any particular course, is how to communicate persuasively-in any situation that comes your way. The five-paragraph theme is too rigid and simplified to fit most real-world situations. Perhaps most important of all: in a five-paragraph theme, form controls content, when it should be the other way around. Students begin with a plan for organization, and they force their ideas to fit it. Along the way, their perfectly good ideas get mangled or lost. How do I break out of writing five-paragraph themes? Let's take an example based on our handout Constructing Thesis Statements. Suppose you're taking a United States History class, and Professor College asks you to write a paper on this topic: Compare and contrast the reasons why the North and South fought the Civil War. Alex, preparing to write her first college history paper, decides to write a five-paragraph theme, just like she learned from Mr. High School. She begins by thinking, "What are three points I can talk about to compare the reasons the North and South fought the Civil War?" She does a little brainstorming, and she says, "Well, in class, Professor College talked about the economy, politics, and slavery. I guess I can do a paper about that." So she writes her introduction: A civil war occurs when two sides in a single country become so angry at each other that they turn to violence. The Civil War between North and South was a major conflict that nearly tore apart the young United States. The North and South fought the Civil War for many reasons. In some cases, these reasons were the same, but in other cases they were very different. In this paper, I will compare and contrast these reasons by examining the economy, politics, and slavery. This is a classic five-paragraph theme introduction: it goes from the general to the specific, and it introduces the three points that will be the subjects of each of the three body paragraphs. But Professor College doesn't like it, not one little bit. She underlines the first two sentences, and she writes, "This is too general. Get to the point." She underlines the third and fourth sentences, and she writes, "You're just restating the question I asked. What's your point?" She underlines the final sentence, and then writes in the margin, "What's your thesis?" because the last sentence in the paragraph only lists topics. It doesn't make an argument. Is Professor College just a big old grouch? Well, no, she is trying to teach this student that college writing isn't about following a formula (the five-paragraph theme), it's about making an argument. Her first sentence is general, the way she learned a five-paragraph should start. But from Professor College's perspective, it's far too general-so general, in fact, that it's completely outside of the assignment: she didn't ask students to define civil war. The third and fourth sentences say, in so many words, "I am comparing and contrasting the reasons why the North and the South fought the Civil War"-as Professor College says, they just restate the prompt, without giving a single hint about where this student's paper is going. The final sentence, which should make an argument, only lists topics; it doesn't begin to explore how or why something happened. If you've seen a lot of five-paragraph themes, you can guess what Alex will write next. Her first body paragraph will begin, ?We can see some of the different reasons why the North and South fought the Civil War by looking at the economy.? What will Professor College say about that? She might ask, "What differences can we see? What part of the economy are you talking about? Why do the differences exist? Why are they important?" After three such body paragraphs, the student might write a conclusion that says much the same thing as her introduction, in slightly different words. Professor College might respond, "You've already said this!" What could Alex do differently? Let's start over. This time, Alex doesn't begin with a preconceived notion of how to organize her essay. Instead of three "points," she decides that she will brainstorm until she comes up with a main argument, or thesis, that answers the question ?Why did the North and South fight the Civil War?? Then she will decide how to organize her draft by thinking about the argument's parts and how they fit together. After following a process you can follow in our handout on thesis statements or on brainstorming, Alex thinks of a main argument, or thesis statement: Both Northerners and Southerners believed they fought against tyranny and oppression, but Northerners focused on the oppression of slaves while Southerners defended their rights to property and self-government. Then Alex writes her introduction. But instead of beginning with a general statement about civil wars, she gives us the ideas we need to know in order to understand all the parts of her argument: The United States broke away from England in response to British tyranny and oppression, so opposition to tyranny and a belief in individual freedom and liberty were important values in the young republic. But in the nineteenth century, slavery made Northerners and Southerners see these values in very different ways. By 1860, the conflict over these values broke out into a civil war that nearly tore the country apart. In that war, both Northerners and Southerners believed they fought against tyranny and oppression, but Northerners focused on the oppression of slaves while Southerners defended their rights to property and self-government. You go, girl! Every sentence in her new introduction leads the reader down the path to her thesis statement in an unbroken chain of ideas. Now Alex turns to organization. You'll find more about the thinking process she goes through in our handout on Organization, but here are the basics: first, she decides, she'll write a paragraph that gives background; she'll explain how opposition to tyranny and a belief in individual liberty came to be such important values in the United States. Then she'll write another background paragraph in which she shows how the conflict over slavery developed over time. Then she'll have separate paragraphs about Northerners and Southerners, explaining in detail-and giving evidence for-her claims about each group's reasons for going to war. Note that Alex now has four body paragraphs. She might have had three or two or seven; what's important is that she allowed her argument to tell her how many paragraphs she should have and how to fit them together. Furthermore, her body paragraphs don't all discuss "points," like "the economy" and "politics"-two of them give background, and the other two explain Northerners' and Southerners' views in detail. Finally, having followed her sketch outline and written her paper, Alex turns to writing a conclusion. From our handout on Conclusions, she knows that a "that's my story and I'm sticking to it" conclusion doesn't move her ideas forward. Applying the strategies she finds in the handout, she decides that she can use her conclusion to explain why the paper she's just written really matters-perhaps by pointing out that the fissures in our society that the Civil War opened are, in many cases, still causing trouble today Is it ever OK to write a five-paragraph theme? Yes. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where somebody expects you to make sense of a large body of information on the spot and write a well-organized, persuasive essay-in fifty minutes or less? Sounds like an essay exam situation, right? When time is short and the pressure is on, falling back on the good old five-paragraph theme can save you time and give you confidence. A five-paragraph theme might also work as the framework for a short speech. Try not to fall into the trap, however, of creating a "listing" thesis statement when your instructor expects an argument; think about three components of an argument, rather than three "points" to discuss, when planning your body paragraphs. On the other hand, most professors recognize the constraints of writing blue-book essays, and a "listing" thesis is probably better than no thesis at all. Bibliography Blue, Tina. "AP English Blather," http://www.essayisay.homestead.com/blather.html, accessed Feb. 3, 2004. Blue, Tina. "A Partial Defense of the Five-Paragraph Theme as a Model for Student Writing," http://www.essayisay.homestead.com/fiveparagraphs.html, accessed March 25, 2004. "Gains in Houston Schools: How Real Are They?" The New York Times, Dec. 3, 2003, A1. Hillocks, George Jr. The Testing Trap: How State Assessments Control Learning. New York and London: Teacher's College Press, 2002. Katzman, John, Lutz, Andy, and Olson, Erik. "Would Shapespeare Get Into Swarthmore?" The Atlantic Monthly, March, 2004, 97-99. Shen, Andrea, "Study looks at role of writing in learning," http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2000/10.26/06-writing.html, accessed Feb. 3, 2004. Argument Adapted from: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/ What this handout is about... This handout will define what an argument is and why you need one in most of your academic essays. Arguments are everywhere... You may be surprised to hear that the word "argument" does not have to be written anywhere in your assignment for it to be an important part of your task. In fact, making an argument--expressing a point of view on a subject and supporting it with evidence--is often the aim of academic writing. Your instructors may assume that you know this fact, and therefore they may not explain its importance to you in class. Nevertheless, if your writing assignment asks you to respond to reading and discussion in class, your instructor likely expects you to produce an argument in your paper. Most material you learn in college is or has been debated by someone, somewhere, at some time. Even when the material you read or hear is presented as simple "information" or "fact," it may actually be one person's interpretation of a set of information or facts. In your writing, instructors may call on you to question that interpretation and either defend it, refute it, or offer some new view of your own. In writing assignments, you will almost always need to do more than just present information that you have gathered or regurgitate information that was discussed in class. You will need to select a point of view and provide evidence (in other words, use "argument") to shape the material and offer your interpretation of the material. If you think that "fact," not argument, rules intelligent thinking, consider these examples. At one point, the "great minds" of Western Europe firmly believed the Earth was flat. They had discussions about how obviously true this "fact" was. You are able to disagree now because people who saw that argument as faulty set out to make a better argument and proved it. Differences of opinion are how human knowledge develops, and scholars like your instructors spend their lives engaged in debate over what may be counted as "true," "real," or "right" in their fields. In their courses, they want you to engage in similar kinds of critical thinking and debate in your writing. Argumentation is not just what your instructors do. We all use argumentation on a daily basis, and you probably already have some skill at crafting an argument. The more you improve your skills in this area, the better you will be at thinking critically, reasoning, making choices, and weighing evidence. Making a Claim What is an argument? In academic writing, an argument is usually a main idea, often called a "claim" or "thesis statement," backed up with evidence that supports the idea. Ninety-nine percent of the time you will need to make some sort of claim and use evidence to support it, and your ability to do this well will separate your papers from those of students who see assignments as mere accumulations of fact and detail. In other words, gone are the happy days of being given a "topic" about which you can write anything. It is time to stake out a position and prove why it is a good position for a thinking person to hold. Claims can be as simple as "protons are positively charged and electrons are negatively charged," with evidence such as, "In this experiment, protons and electrons acted in such and such a way." Claims can also be as complex as "the end of the South African system of apartheid was inevitable," using reasoning and evidence such as, "Every successful revolution in the modern era has come about after the government in power has given and then removed small concessions to the uprising group." In either case, the rest of your paper will detail reasons and facts that have led you to believe that your position is best. When beginning to write a paper, ask yourself, "What is my point"? For example, the point of this handout is to help you become a better writer, and we are arguing that an important step in the process of writing argumentation is understanding the concept of argumentation. If your papers do not have a main point, they cannot be arguing for anything. Asking yourself what your point is can help you avoid a mere "information dump." Consider this: Your instructors probably know a lot more than you do about your subject matter. Why, then, would you want to provide them with material they already know? Instructors are usually looking for two things: Proof that you understand the material, AND A demonstration of your ability to use or apply the material beyond what you have read or heard. This second part can be done in many ways: You can critique the material, or apply it to something else, or even just explain it in a different way. In order to achieve this second step, though, you must have a particular point to argue. Arguments in academic writing are usually complex and take time to develop. Your argument will need to be more than a simple or obvious statement such as, "Frank Lloyd Wright was a great architect." Such a statement might capture your initial impressions of Wright as you have studied him in class; however, you need to look deeper and express specifically what caused that "greatness." Your instructor will probably expect something more complicated, such as, "Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture combines elements of European modernism, Asian aesthetic form, and locally found materials to create a unique new style," or "There are many strong similarities between Wright's building designs and those of his mother's, which suggests that he may have borrowed some of her ideas." Then you would define your terms and prove your argument with evidence from Wright's drawings and buildings and those of the other architects you mentioned. Evidence Do not stop with having a point. You have to back up your point with evidence. The strength of your evidence, and your use of it, can make or break your argument. You already have the natural inclination for this type of thinking, if not in an academic setting. Think about how you talked your parents into letting you borrow the car. Did you present them with lots of instances of trustworthiness on your part from the past? Did you make them feel guilty, because your friends' parents all let them drive? Did you whine until they just wanted you to shut up? Did you look up statistics on teen driving and use them to show how you didn't fit the dangerous-driver profile? These are all types of argumentation, and they exist in academia in similar forms. Every field has slightly different requirements for acceptable evidence, so familiarize yourself with some arguments from within that field instead of just applying whatever evidence you like best. Pay attention to your textbooks and your instructor's lectures. What types of argument and evidence are they using? The type of evidence that sways an English instructor may not work to convince a Sociology instructor. Find out what counts as proof that something is true in that field. Is it statistics, a logical development of points, something from the object being discussed (art work, text, culture, or atom), the way something works, or some combination of more than one of these things? Be consistent with your evidence. Unlike negotiating for the use of your parents' car, a college paper is not the place for an all-out blitz of every type of argument. You can often use more than one type of evidence within a paper, but make sure that within each section you are providing the reader with evidence appropriate to each claim. So, if you start a paragraph or section with a statement like "putting the student section closer to the court in the Dean Dome will raise player performance," do not follow with your evidence on how much more tuition is raised by letting more students go to games for free. Information about how fan support raises player morale, which then results in better play, would be a better follow-up. Then the next section could offer clear reasons why undergraduates have as much or more right to attend an undergraduate event as wealthy alumni--but not in the same section as the fan support stuff. You cannot convince a confused person, so keep things tidy and ordered. Counterargument One way to strengthen your argument and show that you have a deep understanding of the issue you are discussing is to anticipate and address counterarguments or objections. By considering what someone who disagrees with your position might have to say about your argument, you show that your have thought things through, and you dispose of some of the reasons your audience might have for not accepting your argument. Recall our discussion of student seating in the Dean Dome. To make the most effective argument possible, you should consider not only what students would say about seating, but also what alumni who have paid a lot to get good seats might say about the issue. You can generate counterarguments by asking yourself what someone who disagrees with you might say about each of the points you've made or about your position as a whole. If you can't immediately imagine another position, here are some strategies to try: Do some research. It may seem to you that no one could possibly disagree with the position you are arguing, but someone probably has. For example, some people argue that the American Civil War never ended. If you are making an argument concerning, for example, the outcomes of the Civil War, you might wish to see what some of these people have to say. Talk with a friend or with your teacher. Another person may be able to imagine counterarguments that haven't occurred to you. Consider the conclusion and the premises of your argument, and imagine someone who denies each of them. Then you can see which of these arguments are most worth considering. For example, if you argued "Cats make the best pets. This is because they are clean and independent," you might imagine someone saying "Cats do not make the best pets. They are dirty and needy." Once you have thought up some counterarguments, consider how you will respond to them--will you concede that your opponent has a point but explain why your audience should nonetheless accept your argument? Will you reject the counterargument and explain why it is mistaken? Either way, you will want to leave your reader with a sense that your argument is stronger than opposing arguments. When you are summarizing opposing arguments, be charitable. Present each argument fairly and objectively, rather than trying to make it look foolish. You want to show that you have seriously considered the many sides of the issue, and that you are not simply attacking or caricaturing your opponents. It is usually better to consider one or two serious counterarguments in some depth, rather than to give a long but superficial list of many different counterarguments and replies. Be sure that your reply is consistent with your original argument. If considering a counterargument changes your position, you will need to go back and revise your original argument accordingly. Audience Audience is a very important consideration in argument. A lifetime of dealing with your parents has helped you figure out which arguments work in different situations. Maybe whining works with your dad, but your mom will only accept cold, hard statistics. Your kid brother may listen only to the sound of money in his palm. It's usually wise to think of your audience in an academic setting as someone who is perfectly smart, but who doesn't already or necessarily agree with you. You are not just expressing your opinion in an argument ("it's true because I said so")--and in most cases your audience is pretty knowledgeable on the subject at hand--so you will need sturdier proof. At the same time, do not think of your audience as a genius clairvoyant. You have to come out and state both your claim and your evidence clearly. Do not assume that because the instructor knows the material that he or she understands what part of it you are using, what you think about it, and why. Critical Reading Critical reading is a big part of understanding argument. Although some of the material you read will be very persuasive, do not fall under the spell of the printed word as authority. Very few of your instructors think of the texts they assign as the last word on the subject. Remember that the author of every text has an agenda, something that they want you to believe. Take notes either in the margins or on a separate sheet as you read. Put away that highlighter! Simply highlighting a text is only good for memorizing that text--it does not encourage critical reading. Part of the goal is to put the author's ideas in your own words. Then you can stop thinking of these ideas as facts and start thinking of them as arguments. When you read, ask yourself questions like "What is the author trying to prove?" and "What is the author assuming I will agree with?" Do you agree with the author? Does the author adequately defend her argument? What kind of proof does she use? Is there something she leaves out that you would put in? Does putting it in hurt her argument? As you get used to reading critically, you will start to see the sometimes hidden agendas of other writers, and you can use this skill to improve your own ability to argue. References: Anson, Chris M. and Robert A Schwegler. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers. 2nd ed. New York, Longman, 2000. Booth, Wayne C. The Craft of Research. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Ede, Lisa. Work in Progress. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. Gage, John T. The Shape of Reason: Argumentative Writing in College. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1991. [Not in UNC Libraries; Available on Writing Center bookshelf.] Lunsford, Andrea and John Ruszkiewicz. Everything's an Argument. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999. [Not in UNC Libraries; Available on Writing Center bookshelf.] Rosen, Leonard J. and Laurence Behrens. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1997.   Toulmin's Analysis Stephen Toulmin, a modern rhetorician, believed that few arguments actually follow classical models of logic like the syllogism, so he developed a model for analyzing the kind of argument you read and hear every day--in newspapers and on television, at work, in classrooms, and in conversation. Toulmin's model focuses on identifying the basic parts of an argument. As a researcher and writer, you can use Toulmin's model two ways:  ·  to identify and analyze your sources by identifying the basic elements of the arguments being made, and  ·  to test and critique your own argument. Please note that this page presents only a very simplified version of Toulmin's theory. For a more complete understanding, you should read Toulmin's book The Uses of Argument (Cambridge University Press, 1958). Toulmin identifies the three essential parts of any argument as the claim, the data or evidence which is offered to support the claim, and the warrant. The warrant is the assumption on which the claim and the evidence depend. Another way of saying this would be that the warrant explains why the data supports the claim. For example, suppose you see a one of those commercials for a product that promises to give you whiter teeth. Here are the basic parts of the argument behind the commercial: Notice that those commercials don't usually bother trying to convince you that you want whiter teeth; instead, they assume that you have bought into the value our culture places on whiter teeth. When an assumption--a warrant in Toulmin's terms--is unstated, it's called an implicit warrant. Sometimes, however, the warrant may need to be stated because it is a powerful part of the argument. When the warrant is stated, it's called an explicit warrant. Toulmin says that the weakest part of any argument is its weakest warrant. Remember that the warrant is the link between the data and the claim. If the warrant isn't valid, the argument collapses. Now that you're familiar with the three main parts of an argument, let's look at three other elements Toulmin identified. So--how do you make this model work for you? Have you ever noticed that when you research both sides of a question, you find yourself being convinced first by one side, and then by the other? Each argument sounds good--at least while you are reading it. When you read an argument which takes an opposite position--that sounds good too, and soon you may feel completely confused. Toulmin to the rescue! By identifying the parts of an argument so each can be evaluated separately, Toulmin created a very useful model for analyzing the validity of an argument. Submit each source you study to rigorous Toulmin analysis. Identify each argument's claims, data, and warrants. Look for qualifiers, rebuttals, and backing for the warrants. Compare one claim with another. Compare data between the two arguments. Compare warrants and their backing, qualifiers, and rebuttals. By analyzing the separate parts of an argument, you'll be much better equipped to evaluate each argument's validity. Then, as you begin to write, use Toulmin's methods to submit your own argument to the same rigorous analysis. Use this worksheet in MS Word or rich text format as a guide to using Toulmin's model to question and evaluate your research sources. Links to Other Resources Stephen Toulmin (brief biography) The Toulmin Project Home Page Toulmin Argument Toulmin?s Model of Argument How to use this worksheet: Toulmin?s model is an effective tool to help you question your sources and the essential elements of your own argument. Use a separate copy of this worksheet to evaluate each of your sources. Once you?ve identified the specific parts of each argument, compare the claims, the data, the warrants (along with any qualifiers, rebuttals, or backing). Note where arguments are similar or different, weaker or stronger, supported by more or less (or by convincing or unconvincing) data. Use another copy of the worksheet to plan your own argument. Decide on a claim that is supported by the data and the warrants you have discovered through your research. Knowing the elemental structure of your argument is an essential step toward producing an effective argument. Source: (Record the full source citation here)_______________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ List each claim made in the argument.____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Record the data used to support each claim.________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Identify the warrants. (What assumptions make the data support the claims?) Are these warrants implicit (implied) or explicit (clearly stated)?______________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Record any backing given for the warrant(s)._______________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ List any qualifiers._____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ List any rebuttals._____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What is your overall evaluation of the strength or weakness of this argument? What reasons can you give to support your evaluation?________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Brainstorming Adapted from: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/ What this handout is about... This handout discusses techniques that will help you start writing a paper and continue writing through the challenges of the revising process. Brainstorming can help you choose a topic, develop an approach to a topic, or deepen your understanding of the topic's potential. Introduction If you consciously take advantage of your natural thinking processes by gathering your brain's energies into a "storm," you can transform these energies into written words or diagrams that will lead to lively, vibrant writing. Below you will find a brief discussion of what brainstorming is, why you might brainstorm, and suggestions for how you might brainstorm. Whether you are starting with too much information or not enough, brainstorming can help you to put a new writing task in motion or revive a project that hasn't reached completion. Let's take a look at each case: When you've got nothing: You might need a storm to approach when you feel "blank" about the topic, devoid of inspiration, full of anxiety about the topic, or just too tired to craft an orderly outline. In this case, brainstorming stirs up the dust, whips some air into our stilled pools of thought, and gets the breeze of inspiration moving again. When you've got too much: There are times when you have too much chaos in your brain and need to bring in some conscious order. In this case, brainstorming forces the mental chaos and random thoughts to rain out onto the page, giving you some concrete words or schemas that you can then arrange according to their logical relations. Brainstorming Techniques What follows are great ideas on how to brainstorm-ideas from professional writers, novice writers, people who would rather avoid writing, and people who spend a lot of time brainstorming about?well, how to brainstorm. Try out several of these options and challenge yourself to vary the techniques you rely on; some techniques might suit a particular writer, academic discipline, or assignment better than others. If the technique you try first doesn't seem to help you, move right along and try some others. Freewriting When you freewrite, you let your thoughts flow as they will, putting pen to paper and writing down whatever comes into your mind. You don't judge the quality of what you write and you don't worry about style or any surface-level issues, like spelling, grammar, or punctuation. If you can't think of what to say, you write that down-really. The advantage of this technique is that you free up your internal critic and allow yourself to write things you might not write if you were being too self-conscious. When you freewrite you can set a time limit ("I'll write for 15 minutes!") and even use a kitchen timer or alarm clock or you can set a space limit ("I'll write until I fill four full notebook pages, no matter what tries to interrupt me!") and just write until you reach that goal. You might do this on the computer or on paper, and you can even try it with your eyes shut or the monitor off, which encourages speed and freedom of thought. The crucial point is that you keep on writing even if you believe you are saying nothing. Word must follow word, no matter the relevance. Your freewriting might even look like this: "This paper is supposed to be on the politics of tobacco production but even though I went to all the lectures and read the book I can't think of what to say and I've felt this way for four minutes now and I have 11 minutes left and I wonder if I'll keep thinking nothing during every minute but I'm not sure if it matters that I am babbling and I don't know what else to say about this topic and it is rainy today and I never noticed the number of cracks in that wall before and those cracks remind me of the walls in my grandfather's study and he smoked and he farmed and I wonder why he didn't farm tobacco..." When you're done with your set number of minutes or have reached your page goal, read back over the text. Yes, there will be a lot of filler and unusable thoughts but there also will be little gems, discoveries, and insights. When you find these gems, highlight them or cut and paste them into your draft or onto an "ideas" sheet so you can use them in your paper. Even if you don't find any diamonds in there, you will have either quieted some of the noisy chaos or greased the writing gears so that you can now face the assigned paper topic. Break down the topic into levels: Once you have a course assignment in front of you, you might brainstorm: the general topic, like "The relationship between tropical fruits and colonial powers" a specific subtopic or required question, like "How did the availability of multiple tropical fruits influence competition amongst colonial powers trading from the larger Caribbean islands during the 19th century?" a single term or phrase that you sense you're overusing in the paper. For example: If you see that you've written "increased the competition" about a dozen times in your "tropical fruits" paper, you could brainstorm variations on the phrase itself or on each of the main terms: "increased" and "competition." Listing/Bulleting: In this technique you jot down lists of words or phrases under a particular topic. Try this one by basing your list either on the general topic on one or more words from your particular thesis claim, or on a word or idea that is the complete opposite of your original word or idea. For example, if your general assignment is to write about the changes in inventions over time, and your specific thesis claims that "the 20th century presented a large number of inventions to advance US society by improving upon the status of 19th-century society," you could brainstorm two different lists to ensure you are covering the topic thoroughly and that your thesis will be easy to prove. The first list might be based on your thesis; you would jot down as many 20th-century inventions as you could, as long as you know of their positive effects on society. The second list might be based on the opposite claim and you would instead jot down inventions that you associate with a decline in that society's quality. You could do the same two lists for 19th-century inventions and then compare the evidence from all four lists. Using multiple lists will help you to gather more perspective on the topic and ensure that, sure enough, your thesis is solid as a rock, or, ?uh oh, your thesis is full of holes and you'd better alter your claim to one you can prove. Cubing: Cubing enables you to consider your topic from six different directions; just as a cube is six-sided, your cubing brainstorming will result in six "sides" or approaches to the topic. Take a sheet of paper, consider your topic, and respond to these six commands. Describe it. Compare it. Associate it. Analyze it. Apply it. Argue for and against it. Look over what you've written. Do any of the responses suggest anything new about your topic? What interactions do you notice among the "sides"? That is, do you see patterns repeating, or a theme emerging that you could use to approach the topic or draft a thesis? Does one side seem particularly fruitful in getting your brain moving? Could that one side help you draft your thesis statement? Use this technique in a way that serves your topic. It should, at least, give you a broader awareness of the topic's complexities, if not a sharper focus on what you will do with it. Similes: In this technique, complete the following sentence: ____________________ is/was/are/were like _____________________. In the first blank put one of the terms or concepts your paper centers on. Then try to brainstorm as many answers as possible for the second blank, writing them down as you come up with them. After you have produced a list of options, look over your ideas. What kinds of ideas come forward? What patterns or associations do you find? Clustering/ Mapping/ Webbing: The general idea: This technique has three (or more) different names, according to how you describe the activity itself or what the end product looks like. In short, you will write a lot of different terms and phrases onto a sheet of paper in a random fashion and later go back to link the words together into a sort of "map" or "web" that forms groups from the separate parts. Allow yourself to start with chaos. After the chaos subsides, you will be able to create some order out of it. To really let yourself go in this brainstorming technique, use a large piece of paper or tape two pieces together. You could also use a blackboard if you are working with a group of people. This big vertical space allows all members room to "storm" at the same time, but you might have to copy down the results onto paper later. If you don't have big paper at the moment, don't worry. You can do this on an 8 ½ by 11 as well. How to do it: Take your sheet(s) of paper and write your main topic in the center, using a word or two or three. Moving out from the center and filling in the open space any way you are driven to fill it, start to write down, fast, as many related concepts or terms as you can associate with the central topic. Jot them quickly, move into another space, jot some more down, move to another blank, and just keep moving around and jotting. If you run out of similar concepts, jot down opposites, jot down things that are only slightly related, or jot down your grandpa's name, but try to keep moving and associating. Don't worry about the (lack of) sense of what you write, for you can chose to keep or toss out these ideas when the activity is over. Once the storm has subsided and you are faced with a hail of terms and phrases, you can start to cluster. Circle terms that seem related and then draw a line connecting the circles. Find some more and circle them and draw more lines to connect them with what you think is closely related. When you run out of terms that associate, start with another term. Look for concepts and terms that might relate to that term. Circle them and then link them with a connecting line. Continue this process until you have found all the associated terms. Some of the terms might end up uncircled, but these "loners" can also be useful to you. (Note: You can use different colored pens/pencils/chalk for this part, if you like. If that's not possible, try to vary the kind of line you use to encircle the topics; use a wavy line, a straight line, a dashed line, a dotted line, a zigzaggy line, etc. in order to see what goes with what.) There! When you stand back and survey your work, you should see a set of clusters, or a big web, or a sort of map: hence the names for this activity. At this point you can start to form conclusions about how to approach your topic. There are about as many possible results to this activity as there are stars in the night sky, so what you do from here will depend on your particular results. Let's take an example or two in order to illustrate how you might form some logical relationships between the clusters and loners you've decided to keep. At the end of the day, what you do with the particular "map" or "cluster set" or "web" that you produce depends on what you need. What does this map or web tell you to do? Explore an option or two and get your draft going! Relationship Between the Parts: In this technique, begin by writing the following pairs of terms on opposite margins of one sheet of paper: Looking over these four groups of pairs, start to fill in your ideas below each heading. Keep going down through as many levels as you can. Now, look at the various parts that comprise the parts of your whole concept. What sorts of conclusions can you draw according to the patterns, or lack of patterns, that you see? Journalistic Questions: In this technique you would use the "big six" questions that journalists rely on to thoroughly research a story. The six are: Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How?. Write each question word on a sheet of paper, leaving space between them. Then, write out some sentences or phrases in answer, as they fit your particular topic. You might also answer into a tape recorder if you'd rather talk out your ideas. Now look over your batch of responses. Do you see that you have more to say about one or two of the questions? Or, are your answers for each question pretty well balanced in depth and content? Was there one question that you had absolutely no answer for? How might this awareness help you to decide how to frame your thesis claim or to organize your paper? Or, how might it reveal what you must work on further, doing library research or interviews or further note-taking? For example, if your answers reveal that you know a lot more about "where" and "why" something happened than you know about "what" and "when," how could you use this lack of balance to direct your research or to shape your paper? How might you organize your paper so that it emphasizes the known versus the unknown aspects of evidence in the field of study? What else might you do with your results? Thinking Outside the Box: Even when you are writing within a particular academic discipline, you can take advantage of your semesters of experience in other courses from other departments. Let's say you are writing a paper for an English course. You could ask yourself, "Hmmm, if I were writing about this very same topic in a biology course or using this term in a history course, how might I see or understand it differently? Are there varying definitions for this concept within, say, philosophy or physics, that might encourage me to think about this term from a new, richer point of view?" For example, when discussing "culture" in your English 11, communications, or cultural studies course, you could incorporate the definition of "culture" that is frequently used in the biological sciences. Remember those little Petri dishes from your lab experiments in high school? Those dishes are used to "culture" substances for bacterial growth and analysis, right? How might it help you write your paper if you thought of "culture" as a medium upon which certain things will grow, will develop in new ways or will even flourish beyond expectations, but upon which the growth of other things might be retarded, significantly altered, or stopped altogether? Using Charts or Shapes: If you are more visually inclined, you might create charts, graphs, or tables in lieu of word lists or phrases as you try to shape or explore an idea. You could use the same phrases or words that are central to your topic and try different ways to arrange them spatially, say in a graph, on a grid, or in a table or chart. You might even try the trusty old flow chart. The important thing here is to get out of the realm of words alone and see how different spatial representations might help you see the relationships among your ideas. If you can't imagine the shape of a chart at first, just put down the words on the page and then draw lines between or around them. Or think of a shape. Do your ideas most easily form a triangle? square? umbrella? Can you put some ideas in parallel formation? In a line? Consider Purpose and Audience: Think about the parts of communication involved in any writing or speaking event act: purpose and audience. What is your purpose? What are you trying to do? What verb captures your intent? Are you trying to inform? Convince? Describe? Each purpose will lead you to a different set of information and help you shape material to include and exclude in a draft. Write about why you are writing this draft in this form. Who is your audience? Who are you communicating with beyond the grader? What does that audience need to know? What do they already know? What information does that audience need first, second, third? Write about who you are writing to and what they need. Dictionaries, Thesauruses, Encyclopedias: When all else fails?this is a tried and true method, loved for centuries by writers of all stripe. Visit the library reference areas or stop by the Writing Center to browse various dictionaries, thesauruses (or other guide books and reference texts), encyclopedias or surf their online counterparts. Sometimes these basic steps are the best ones. It is almost guaranteed that you'll learn several things you did not know. If you're looking at a hard copy reference, turn to your most important terms and see what sort of variety you find in the definitions. The obscure or archaic definition might help you to appreciate the term's breadth or realize how much its meaning has changed as the language changed. Could that realization be built into your paper somehow? If you go to online sources, use their own search functions to find your key terms and see what suggestions they offer. For example, if you plug "good" into a thesaurus search, you will be given 14 different entries. Whew! If you were analyzing the film Good Will Hunting, imagine how you could enrich your paper by addressed the six or seven ways that "good" could be interpreted according to how the scenes, lighting, editing, music, etc., emphasized various aspects of "good." An encyclopedia is sometimes a valuable resource if you need to clarify facts, get quick background, or get a broader context for an event or item. If you are stuck because you have a vague sense of a seemingly important issue, do a quick check with this reference and you may be able to move forward with your ideas. Closing Armed with a full quiver of brainstorming techniques and facing sheets of jotted ideas, bulleted subtopics, or spidery webs relating to your paper, what do you do now? Take the next step and start to write your first draft, or fill in those gaps you've been brainstorming about to complete your "almost ready" paper. If you're a fan of outlining, prepare one that incorporates as much of your brainstorming data as seems logical to you. If you're not a fan, don't make one. Instead, start to write out some larger chunks (large groups of sentences or full paragraphs) to expand upon your smaller clusters and phrases. Keep building from there into larger sections of your paper. You don't have to start at the beginning of the draft. Start writing the section that comes together most easily. You can always go back to write the introduction later. We also have helpful handouts on some of the next steps in your writing process, such as Organization and Argument in Academic Writing and others. Remember, once you've begun the paper, you can stop and try another brainstorming technique whenever you feel stuck. Keep the energy moving and try several techniques to find what suits you or the particular project you are working on. Bibliography Allen, Roberta, and Marcia Mascolini. The Process of Writing: Composing through Critical Thinking. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice. 1997. Cameron, Julia. The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. New York: Putnam, 1995. Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Boston: Shambhala, 1986. Rosen, Leonard J., and Laurence Behrens. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook. 3rd ed. Boston: Allyn, 1992. University of Richmond Writing Center. "Writer's Web." 1 Apr. 2003. . Introductions Adapted from: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/ What this handout is about This handout will explain the functions of introductions, offer strategies for writing effective ones, help you check your drafted introductions, and provide you with examples of introductions to be avoided. The Role of Introductions Introductions and conclusions can be the most difficult parts of papers to write. Usually when you sit down to respond to an assignment, you have at least some sense of what you want to say in the body of your paper. You might have chosen a few examples you want to use or have an idea that will help you answer the question: these sections, therefore, are not as hard to write. But these middle parts of the paper can't just come out of thin air; they need to be introduced and they need to be concluded in a way that makes sense to your reader. What purpose do these sections serve? Your introduction and conclusion act as bridges that transport your readers from their own lives into the "place" of your analysis. If your readers pick up your paper about education in the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, for example, they need a transition to help them leave behind the world of Chapel Hill, network television, e-mail and the The Daily Tar Heel and to help them temporarily enter the world of nineteenth-century American slavery. By providing an introduction that helps your readers make a transition between their own world and the issues you will be writing about, you give your readers the tools they need to get into your topic and care about what you are saying. Similarly, once you've hooked your reader with the introduction and offered evidence to prove your thesis, your conclusion can provide a bridge to help your reader make the transition back to their daily lives. (See our handout on conclusions.) Such a conclusion will help them see why all that analysis about nineteenth-century education and American slavery should matter to them after they put the paper down. Why bother writing a good introduction? You never get a second chance to make a first impression. The opening paragraph of your paper will provide your readers with their initial impressions of your argument, your writing style, and the overall quality of your work. A vague, disorganized, error-filled, off-the-wall, or boring introduction will probably create a negative impression. On the other hand, a concise, engaging, and well-written introduction will start your readers off thinking highly of you, your analytical skills, your writing, and your paper. This impression is especially important when the audience you are trying to reach (your instructor) will be grading your work. Do you want that audience to start off thinking "C+" or thinking "A"? Your introduction is an important road map for the rest of your paper. Your introduction conveys a lot of information to your readers. You can let them know what your topic is, why it is important, and how you plan to proceed with your discussion. It should contain a thesis that will assert your main argument. It will also, ideally, give the reader a sense of the kinds of information you will use to make that argument and the general organization of the paragraphs and pages that will follow. After reading your introduction, your readers should not have any major surprises in store when they read the main body of your paper. Ideally, your introduction will make your readers want to read your paper. The introduction should also capture your readers' interest, making them want to read the rest of your paper. Opening with a compelling story, a fascinating quotation, an interesting question, or a stirring example can get your readers to see why this topic matters and serve as an invitation for them to join you for an interesting intellectual conversation. Strategies for Writing an Effective Introduction Start by thinking about the question. Your entire essay will be a response to the assigned question, and your introduction is the first step toward that end. Your direct answer to the assigned question will be your thesis, and your thesis will be included in your introduction, so it is a good idea to use the question as a jumping off point. Imagine that you are assigned the following question: Education has long been considered a major force for American social change, righting the wrongs of our society. Drawing on The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, discuss the relationship between education and slavery in 19th century America. Consider the following: How did white control of education reinforce slavery? How did Douglass and other enslaved African Americans view education while they endured slavery? And what role did education play in the acquisition of freedom? Most importantly, consider the degree to which education was or was not a major force for social change with regard to slavery. You will probably refer back to this question extensively as you prepare your complete essay, and the question itself can also give you some clues about how to approach the introduction. Notice that the question starts with a broad statement, that education has been considered a major force for social change, and then narrows to focus on specific questions from the book. One strategy might be to use a similar model in your own introduction -- start off with a big picture sentence or two about the power of education as a force for change as a way of getting your reader interested and then focus in on the details of your argument about Douglass. Of course, a different approach could also be very successful, but looking at the way the professor set up the question can sometimes give you some ideas for how you might answer it. (See our handout on Reading Assignments for additional information on the hidden clues in assignments.) Try writing your introduction last. You may think that you have to write your introduction first, but that isn't necessarily true, and it isn't always the most effective way to craft a good introduction. You may find that you don't know what you are going to argue at the beginning of the writing process, and only through the experience of writing your paper do you discover your main argument. It is perfectly fine to start out thinking that you want to argue a particular point, but wind up arguing something slightly or even dramatically different by the time you've written most of the paper. The writing process can be an important way to organize your ideas, think through complicated issues, refine your thoughts, and develop a sophisticated argument. However, an introduction written at the beginning of that discovery process will not necessarily reflect what you wind up with at the end. You will need to revise your paper to make sure that the introduction, all of the evidence, and the conclusion reflect the argument you intend. Sometimes it helps to write up all of your evidence first and then write the introduction -- that way you can be sure that the introduction matches the body of the paper. Don't be afraid to write a tentative introduction first and then change it later. Some people find that they need to write some kind of introduction in order to get the writing process started. That's fine, but if you are one of those people, be sure to return to your initial introduction later and rewrite if need be. Open with an attention grabber. Sometimes, especially if the topic of your paper is somewhat dry or technical, opening with something catchy can help. Consider these options: · an intriguing example (for example, the mistress who initially teaches Douglass but then ceases her instruction as she learns more about slavery) a provocative quotation, (Douglass writes that "education and slavery were incompatible with each other") a puzzling scenario, (Frederick Douglass says of slaves that "[N]othing has been left undone to cripple their intellects, darken their minds, debase their moral nature, obliterate all traces of their relationship to mankind; and yet how wonderfully they have sustained the mighty load of a most frightful bondage, under which they have been groaning for centuries!" Douglass clearly asserts that slave owners went to great lengths to destroy the mental capacities of slaves, but yet his own life story proves that these efforts could be unsuccessful.) a vivid and perhaps unexpected anecdote (Learning about slavery in the American history course at Frederick Douglass High School, students studied the work slaves did, the impact of slavery on their families, and the rules that governed their lives. We didn't discuss education, however, until one student, Mary, raised her hand and asked, "But when did they go to school?" That modern high school students could not conceive of an American childhood devoid of formal education speaks volumes about the centrality of education to American youth today, and also suggests the meanings of the deprivation of education to past generations." a thought-provoking question (Given all of the freedoms that were denied enslaved individuals in the American South, why does Frederick Douglass focus his attentions so squarely on education and literacy?) These attention-grabbing openers might get your reader interested and also help your reader connect to what might otherwise seem a pretty obscure topic. Essentially, you can use attention-grabbers to help your readers see why your topic is relevant and to help them begin to care about your findings and perspectives. Pay special attention to your first sentence. If any sentence in your paper is going to be completely free of errors and vagueness, it should be your first one. Start off on the right foot with your readers by making sure that the first sentence actually says something useful and that it does so in an interesting and error-free way. Be straightforward and confident. Avoid statements like "In this paper, I will argue that Frederick Douglass valued education." While this sentence points toward your main argument, it isn't especially interesting. It might be more effective to say what mean in a declarative sentence. It is much more convincing to tell that "Frederick Douglass valued education" than to tell us that you are going to say that he did. Assert your main argument confidently. After all, you can't expect your reader to believe it if it doesn't sound like you believe it! How to Evaluate Your Introduction Draft Ask a friend to read it and then tell you what they expect the paper will discuss, what kinds of evidence the paper will use, and what the tone of the paper will be. If your friend is able to predict the rest of your paper accurately, you probably have a good introduction. Five Kinds of Less Effective Introductions 1. The Place Holder Introduction. When you don't have much to say on a given topic, it is easy to create this kind of introduction. Essentially, this kind of weaker introduction contains several sentences that are vague and don't really say much. They exist just to take up the "introduction space" in your paper. If you had something more effective to say, you would probably say it, but in the meantime this paragraph is just a place holder. Weak Example: Slavery was one of the greatest tragedies in American history. There were many different aspects of slavery. Each created different kinds of problems for enslaved people. 2. The Restated Question Introduction. Restating the question can be an effective strategy, but it can be easy to stop at JUST restating the question instead of offering a more effective, interesting introduction to your paper. The professor or teaching assistant wrote your questions and will be reading ten to seventy essays in response to them--they do not need to read a whole paragraph that simply restates the question. Try to do something more interesting. Weak Example: Indeed, education has long been considered a major force for American social change, righting the wrongs of our society. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass discusses the relationship between education and slavery in 19th century America, showing how white control of education reinforced slavery and how Douglass and other enslaved African Americans viewed education while they endured. Moreover, the book discusses the role that education played in the acquisition of freedom. Education was a major force for social change with regard to slavery. 3. The Webster's Dictionary Introduction. This introduction begins by giving the dictionary definition of one or more of the words in the assigned question. This introduction strategy is on the right track--if you write one of these, you may be trying to establish the important terms of the discussion, and this move builds a bridge to the reader by offering a common, agreed-upon definition for a key idea. You may also be looking for an authority that will lend credibility to your paper. However, anyone can look a word up in the dictionary and copy down what Webster says - it may be far more interesting for you (and your reader) if you develop your own definition of the term in the specific context of your class and assignment. Also recognize that the dictionary is also not a particularly authoritative work -- it doesn't take into account the context of your course and doesn't offer particularly detailed information. If you feel that you must seek out an authority, try to find one that is very relevant and specific. Perhaps a quotation from a source reading might prove better? Dictionary introductions are also ineffective simply because they are so overused. Many graders will see twenty or more papers that begin in this way, greatly decreasing the dramatic impact that any one of those papers will have. You might find a more creative way to define your terms, or perhaps you could weave a definition into a more attention-grabbing introductory paragraph. Weak Example: Webster's dictionary defines slavery as "the state of being a slave," as "the practice of owning slaves," and as "a condition of hard work and subjection." 4. The Dawn of Man Introduction. This kind of introduction generally makes broad sweeping statements about the relevance of this topic since the beginning of time. It is usually very general (similar to the place holder introduction) and fails to connect to the thesis. You may write this kind of introduction when you don't have much to say--which is precisely why it is ineffective. Weak Example: Since the dawn of man, slavery has been a problem in human history. 5. The Book Report Introduction. This introduction is what you had to do for your fifth-grade book reports. It gives the name and author of the book you are writing about, tells what the book is about, and offers other basic facts about the book. You might resort to this sort of introduction when you are trying to fill space because it's a familiar, comfortable format. It is ineffective because it offers details that your reader already knows and that are irrelevant to the thesis. Weak Example: Frederick Douglass wrote his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, in the 1840s. It was published in 1986 by Penguin Books. He tells the story of his life. Sources All quotations are from Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, edited and with introduction by Houston A. Baker, Jr., New York: Penguin Books, 1986. Also available on the Internet http://www.toptags.com/aama/books/book10.htm Thesis Statements Adapted from: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/ What this handout is about? This handout describes what a thesis statement is, how it works in your writing, and how you can discover or refine one for your draft. Introduction Writing in college often takes the form of persuasion, i.e. convincing others that you have an interesting, logical point of view on the subject you are studying. Persuasion is a skill you practice regularly in your daily life. You persuade your roommate to clean up, your parents to let you borrow the car, your friend to vote for your favorite candidate or policy. In college, course assignments often ask you to make a persuasive case in writing. You are asked to convince your reader of your point of view. This form of persuasion, often called academic argument, follows a predictable pattern in writing. After a brief introduction of your topic, you state your point of view on the topic directly and often in one sentence. This sentence is the thesis statement and it serves as a summary of the argument you'll make in the rest of your paper. What is a thesis statement? A thesis statement: tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion. is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper. directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel that others might dispute. is usually a single sentence somewhere in your first paragraph that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation. If your assignment asks you to take a position or develop a claim about a subject, you may need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. The assignment may not explicitly state that you need a thesis statement because your instructor may assume you will include one. When in doubt, ask your instructor if the assignment requires a thesis statement. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare and contrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue, it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support it persuasively. (Check out our handout, How to Read an Assignment, for more information.) How do I get a thesis? A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a "working thesis," a basic or main idea, an argument that you think you can support with evidence but that may need adjustment along the way. Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on Brainstorming. How do I know if my thesis is strong? If there's time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following: Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like "good" or "successful," see if you could be more specific: Why is something "good"; What makes something "successful"? Does my thesis pass the 'So What?' test? If a reader's first response is, "So what?" then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue. Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary. Does my thesis pass the how or why test? If a reader's first response is "how? or why? your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning. Examples Suppose you are taking a course on 19th-century America, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: Compare and contrast the reasons why the North and South fought the Civil War. You turn on the computer and type out the following: The North and South fought the Civil War for many reasons, some of which were the same and some different. This weak thesis restates the question without providing any additional information. You will expand on this new information in the body of the essay, but it is important that the reader know where you are heading. A reader of this weak thesis might think, "What reasons? How are they the same? How are they different?" Ask yourself these same questions and begin to compare Northern and Southern attitudes ("The South believed slavery was right, and the North thought slavery was wrong"). Now, push your comparison toward an interpretation-why did one side think slavery was right and the other side think it was wrong? You look again at the evidence and you decide the North believed slavery was immoral while the South believed it upheld their way of life. You write: While both sides fought the Civil War over the issue of slavery, the North fought for moral reasons while the South fought to preserve its own institutions. Now you have a working thesis! Included in this working thesis is a reason for the war and some idea of how the two sides disagreed over this reason. As you write the essay, you will probably begin to characterize these differences more precisely and your working thesis may seem vague. Maybe you decide that both sides fought for moral reasons, they just saw morality in different contexts. You end up revising the working thesis into a final thesis that really captures the argument in your paper: While both Northerners and Southerners believed they fought against tyranny and oppression, Northerners focused on the oppression of slaves while Southerners defended their own rights to property and self-government. Compare this to the original weak thesis. This final thesis presents a way of interpreting evidence that illuminates the significance of the question. Keep in mind that this is one of many possible interpretations of the Civil War-it is not the one and only right answer to the question. There isn't a right answer; there are only strong and weak thesis statements and strong and weak uses of evidence. Let's look at another example. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain's novel Huckleberry Finn. "This will be easy," you think. "I loved Huckleberry Finn!" You grab a pad of paper and write: Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel. Why is this thesis weak? Think about what the reader would expect from the essay that follows: you will most likely provide a general, appreciative summary of Twain's novel. The question did not ask you to summarize, it asked you to analyze. Your professor is probably not interested in your opinion of the novel; instead, she wants you to think about why it's such a great novel-what do Huck's adventures tell us about life, about America, about coming of age, about race relations, etc.? First, the question asks you to pick an aspect of the novel that you think is important to its structure or meaning-for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write: In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore. Here's a working thesis with potential: you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation; however, it's still not clear what your analysis will reveal. Your reader is intrigued, but is still thinking, "So what? What's the point of this contrast? What does it signify?" Perhaps you are not sure yet, either. That's fine-begin to work on comparing scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck's actions and reactions. Eventually you will be able to clarify for yourself, and then for the reader, why this contrast matters. After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write: Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain's Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave "civilized" society and go back to nature. This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation. Bibliography Anson, Chris M. and Robert A. Schwegler. The Longman Handbook for Writers. 2nd ed. New York: Longman, 2000. Hairston, Maxine and John J. Ruszkiewicz. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers. 4th ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. Lunsford, Andrea and Robert Connors. The St. Martin's Handbook. 3rd ed. New York: St. Martin's, 1995. Rosen, Leonard J. and Laurence Behrens. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook. 3rd ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1997. Paragraph Development Adapted from: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/ What this handout is about... This handout will? help you understand how paragraphs are formed help you develop stronger paragraphs help you learn how to completely and clearly express your ideas What is a paragraph? One of the central components of a paper is the paragraph. When most students think of a paragraph, they hold onto the old myths about length: a paragraph is at least 5 sentences, a paragraph is half a page, etc. A paragraph, however, is "a group of sentences or a single sentence that forms a unit" (Lunsford and Connors,116). Length or appearance is not a factor in determining whether a section in a paper is a paragraph. In fact, it is not the number of sentences that construct a paragraph, but it is the unity and coherence of ideas among those sentences that makes a paragraph a paragraph. For instance, in some styles of writing, particularly journalistic styles, a paragraph can be one sentence. As long as that sentence expresses the paper's central idea, that sentence can serve the function of a paragraph. Ultimately, strong paragraphs contain a sentence or sentences unified around one central, controlling idea. When the paragraph reaches completion it should serve to bring the reader into your paper and guide his/her understanding of what has been read. Whether that completion happens with one sentence or with twenty, the end result is still a paragraph. How do I decide what to put in a paragraph? Before you can begin to determine what the composition of your paragraphs will be, you must first understand what the controlling idea in your specific piece of writing is. What is the main point or expression that you are trying to convey to your reader? The information that comprises your paragraphs should always have a relationship to this controlling idea. In other words, your paragraphs should remind your reader, at every possible point, that there is a recurrent relationship between your controlling idea and the information in each paragraph. The controlling idea functions like a seed through which your paper, and your ideas, will grow. The whole process is an organic one--a natural progression from a seed to a full-blown paper where there are direct, familial relationships between all of the ideas in your paper. Once you have decided what your controlling idea will be, then you should choose information that will help to support and perpetuate that idea throughout the entire paper. That information takes the form of sentences that comprise each paragraph of your paper. The decision about what to put into your paragraphs, ultimately, begins with the germination of a seed of ideas. This "germination process" is better known as the process of brainstorming. Whatever the topic of your paper may be, it is always a good idea to think about all of the issues that surround your topic and the ultimate goals that you want to express. This process can take on many forms. What form you choose will depend heavily on your style or approach to writing in the pre-writing stage of your writing process. For some writers, the key is writing down all of the relevant issues in a series of phrases or words that express some greater idea. For others, this process involves a collection of information in the form of sentences. Whatever your method for prewriting, this part of paragraph development cannot be avoided. Often, these prewriting efforts become the first signs of development. Building paragraphs can be just as involved as building a major skyscraper: there must be a careful foundation that supports each paragraph just as there must be a careful foundation that supports each building. Any cracks, inconsistencies, or other corruptions of the foundation can cause the whole paper to crumble. Every paragraph in a paper should be Unified - The sentences should all refer to the main idea, or thesis, of the paper (Rosen and Behrens 119). Coherent-The sentences should be arranged in a logical manner and should follow a definite plan for development (Rosen and Behrens 119). Well-Developed - Every idea discussed in the paragraph should be adequately explained and supported through evidence and details that work together to explain the paper's controlling idea (Rosen and Behrens 119). 5-step process to paragraph development 1. Controlling idea- the expression of the main idea, topic, or focus of the paragraph in a sentence or a collection of sentences. Paragraph development begins with the formulation of the controlling idea. This idea directs the paragraph's development. Often, the controlling idea of a paragraph will appear in the form of a topic sentence. A topic sentence announces and controls the content of a paragraph (Rosen and Behrens 122). Topic sentences can occur at four major points in a paragraph: the beginning of the paragraph, the middle of the paragraph, the end of the paragraph, or at both the beginning and the end of the paragraph. Here's how you might begin a paragraph on handing in homework: Idea - Learning how to turn in homework assignments on time is one of the invaluable skills that college students can take with them into the working world. 2. Explanation of controlling idea- the writer's rationale into his/her thinking about the main topic, idea, or focus of the paragraph Paragraph development continues with an expression of the rationale or the explanation that the writer gives for how the reader should interpret the information presented in the idea statement or topic sentence of the paragraph. Here's the sentence that would follow the controlling idea about homework deadlines: Explanation - Though the workforce may not assign homework to its workers in the traditional sense, many of the objectives and jobs that need to be completed require that employees work with deadlines. The deadlines that students encounter in the classroom may be different in content when compared to the deadlines of the workforce, but the importance of meeting those deadlines is the same. In fact, failure to meet deadlines in both the classroom and the workforce can mean instant termination. 3. Example -- the example serves as a sign or representation of the relationship established in the idea and explanation portions of the paragraph Paragraph development progresses with the expression of some type of support or evidence for the idea and the explanation that came before it. Here are two examples that you might use to follow the homework deadline explanation: Example A--For example, in the classroom, students form a contract with the teacher and the university when they enroll in a class. That contract requires that students complete the assignments and objectives set forth by the course's instructor in a specified time to receive a grade and credit for the course. Example B--Accordingly, just as a student risks termination in the classroom if he/she fails to meet the deadline for a homework assignment, so, too, does that student risk termination in the workforce. 4. Explanation (of example) - the reasoning behind why you chose to use this/or these particular examples as evidence to support the major claim, or focus, in your paragraph. The next movement in paragraph development is an explanation of each example and its relevance to the topic sentence and rationale given at the beginning of the paragraph. This pattern continues until all points/examples that the reader deems necessary have been made and explained. NONE of your examples should be left unexplained; the relationship between the example and the idea should always be expressed. Look at these two explanations for examples in the homework deadline paragraph: Explanation for example A--When a student fails to complete those assignments by the deadline, the student breaks her contract with the university and the teacher to complete the assignments and objectives of the course. This often leaves the teacher with no recourse than to fail the student and leaves the university with no other recourse than to terminate the student's credit for the course. Explanation for Example B--A former student's contract with his/her employer functions in much the same way as the contract that student had with his/her instructor and with the university in a particular course. 5. Completion of Paragraph's idea or transitiong into next paragraph--a review for your reader about the relevance of the information that you just discussed in the paragraph, or a transition or preparation for your reader for the paragraph that follows. The final movement in paragraph development involves tying up the loose ends of the paragraph--and reminding the reader of the relevance of the information in this paragraph to the main or controlling idea of the paper. You might feel more comfortable, however, simply transitioning your reader to the next development in the next paragraph. Here's an example of a sentence that completes the homework deadlines paragraph: Idea-Developing good habits of turning in assignments in class now, as current students, will aid your performance and position as future participants in the working world. Notice that the example and explanation steps of this model (steps 3 and 4) can be repeated as needed. The idea is that you continue to use this pattern until you have completely developed the main idea of the paragraph. Now here is a look at the completed paragraph: Learning how to turn in homework assignments on time is one of the invaluable skills that college students can take with them into the working world. Though the workforce may not assign homework to its workers in the traditional sense, many of the objectives and jobs that need to be completed require that employees work with deadlines. The deadlines that students encounter in the classroom may be different in content when compared to the deadlines of the workforce, but the importance of meeting those deadlines is the same. In fact, failure to meet deadlines in both the classroom and the workforce can mean instant termination. For example, in the classroom, students form a contract with the teacher and the university when they enroll in a class. That contract requires that students complete the assignments and objectives set forth by the course's instructor in a specified time to receive a grade and credit for the course. Accordingly, just as a student risks termination in the classroom if he/she fails to meet the deadline for a homework assignment, so, too, does that student risk termination in the workforce. When a student fails to complete those assignments by the deadline, the student breaks her contract with the university and the teacher to complete the assignments and objectives of the course. This often leaves the teacher with no other recourse than to fail the student and leaves the university with no other recourse than to terminate the student's credit for the course. Developing good habits of turning in assignments in class now, as current students, will aid your performance and position as future participants in the working world. Beneath the Formula for Paragraph Development There are some other central components of paragraph development that help to make this formula work. These components are often overlooked, but developing the sentences that complete the steps of the paragraph development process is not possible without these two components: 1) Topic Sentences - A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main idea of a paragraph. It tells the reader what to expect about the information that will follow. Without the use of a topic sentence, developing a paragraph can be extremely difficult. Topic sentences can appear at several points in a paragraph: the beginning of the paragraph the middle of the paragraph the end of the paragraph the beginning and the end of the paragraph *Notice how the development of the paragraph (in the 5-Step example above) is framed by two topic sentences (beginning and end) which work to reinforce the same idea and close the discussion and multiple examples given by the writer.) Here is an example of a topic sentence in the middle of a paragraph (in bold print): Homework is one of those necessary evils of being a student. The one sure way that a teacher knows how to measure your progress in his/her course is to assign homework that tests your knowledge of the information that is taught. Some instructors, however, seem to use homework as a way of reassuring themselves that they have "taught" the information to the students. Many students, aware of these ideas about homework, tend to treat homework as a chore, putting little or no thought into the work that is turned in. However, like any designated task, homework is a reflection not only on you as a student, but also on you as an individual. When an employer has to decide whether or not to hire you, he or she has to consider your ability to complete the demands of the working world. For many employers, the way that you handle your "homework" in college often indicates the way that you will handle your homework on the job. For example, often your grade in a class is determined by the quality of the homework that you do. That homework grade can be a significant part of your final grade for the course. In fact, many students can attest to an experience where the homework grade made the difference in their final course grade. Once you leave college and attempt to find a job, those homework grades translate into final GPAs for your major. Those final GPAs show up on résumés and job applications and employers look to see if you have done your "homework" in school as a key factor in determining if you will do your "homework" on the job. 2) Transitions (see our separate handout on transitions) - Transitions come in the form of single words, phrases, sentences, and even whole paragraphs. They help to establish relationships between ideas in a paragraph and to create a logical progression of those ideas in a paragraph. Without transitions, your paragraph will not be unified, coherent, or well developed. Look at the following paragraph and the transitions that it uses from idea to idea (in bold print): Juggling the demands of a job with the demands of being a full-time student makes good academic performance difficult. Many students are forced to choose between good work on the job and good work in the classroom. Often, good work in the classroom is compromised for good work on the job because the job pays the rent. In addition, those students who do manage to perform well in both areas usually do so at the expense of their health. For example, several students complain of the inability to handle the stress of both a job and school. In fact, the stress of both can often cause headaches, dizziness, fatigue, and other ailments which slow the body down and prevent adequate performance in either area. To eliminate the threat of being in the middle between job and school, students have to form a balance between the demands of work and the demands of the classroom. Ultimately, managing your time more effectively, working the same number of hours in smaller chunks, and planning ahead can all help in alleviating some of the stress to the body and to the mind. In Review? Paragraph development is more than just a few sentences that occupy the same space in a paper, it is an organic process that makes intricate links between various ideas. These links, ultimately, create one single idea that runs throughout the entire paper. There are many different components of the paragraph development model. All of your paragraphs should have one central idea, the idea should have a discussion of how it works, the explanation should be shown in an example, the example should be explained, and the final idea should be reiterated while preparing the reader for the development to come. Awareness and utilization of all of these components will help to make your paragraphs more unified, more coherent, and most importantly, better developed. More Help? For a further discussion of paragraph development on the thesis level, refer to two Writing Center handouts: Constructing Thesis Statements and Developing the Thesis Paragraph. For more help with topic sentences and transitions refer to the Writing Center's Transitions handout. Bibliography Lunsford, Andrea and Robert Collins. The St. Martin's Handbook--Annotated Instructor's Edition. 5th Ed. New York: St. Martin's, 2003. [not in UNC libraries; available on Writing Center bookshelf] Rosen, Leonard and Laurence Behrens. The Allyn and Bacon Handbook--Annotated Instructor's Edition. 4th Ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000. [not in UNC libraries; available on Writing Center bookshelf] Transitions Adapted from: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/ What this handout is about... In this crazy, mixed-up, topsy-turvy world of ours, transitions glue our ideas and our essays together. This handout enlists you in the cause. The Function and Importance of Transitions In both academic writing and professional writing, your goal is to convey information clearly and concisely, if not to convert the reader to your way of thinking. Transitions help you to achieve these goals by establishing logical connections between sentences, paragraphs, and sections of your papers. In other words, transitions tell readers what to do with the information you present them. Whether single words, quick phrases or full sentences, they function as signs for readers that tell them how to think about, organize, and react to old and new ideas as they read through what you have written. Transitions signal relationships between ideas such as: "Another example coming up--stay alert!" or "Here's an exception to my previous statement" or "Although this idea appears to be true, here's the real story." Basically, transitions provide the reader with directions for how to piece together your ideas into a logically coherent argument. Transitions are not just "window dressing" that embellish your paper by making it sound or read better. They are words with particular meanings that tell the reader to think and react in a particular way to your ideas. In providing the reader with these important cues, transitions help readers understand the logic of how your ideas fit together. Organization Since the clarity and effectiveness of your transitions will depend greatly on how well you have organized your paper, you may want to evaluate your paper's organization before you work on transitions. In the margins of your draft, summarize in a word or short phrase what each paragraph is about or how it fits into your analysis as a whole. This exercise should help you to see the order of and connection between your ideas more clearly. If after doing this exercise you find that you still have difficulty linking your ideas together in a coherent fashion, your problem may not be with transitions but with organization. For help in this area, please see the Writing Center's handout on organization and/or make an appointment to see a tutor. How Transitions Work The organization of your written work includes two elements: (1) the order in which you have chosen to present the different parts of your discussion or argument, and (2) the relationships you construct between these parts. Transitions cannot substitute for good organization, but they can make this organization clearer and easier to follow. The following example should help to make this point clear. El Pais, a Latin American country, has a new democratic government after having been a dictatorship for many years. Assume that you want to argue that El Pais is not as democratic as the conventional view would have us believe. One way to effectively organize your argument would be to present the conventional view and then to provide the reader with your critical response to this view. So, in Paragraph A you would want to enumerate all the reasons that someone might consider El Pais highly democratic, while in Paragraph B you would want to refute these points. The transition that would establish the logical connection between these two key elements of your argument would indicate to the reader that the information in paragraph B contradicts the information in paragraph A. As a result, you might organize your argument, including the transition that links paragraph A with paragraph B, in the following manner: Paragraph A: points in support of the view that El Pais's new government is very democratic. Transition: Despite the previous arguments, there are many reasons to think that El Pais's new government is not as democratic as typically believed. Paragraph B: points that contradict the view that El Pais's new government is very democratic. In this case, the transition words "Despite the previous arguments," suggest that the reader should not believe paragraph A and instead should consider the writer's reasons for viewing El Pais's democracy as suspect in the upcoming paragraph. As the previous example suggests, transitions can help reinforce the underlying logic of your paper's organization by providing the reader with essential information regarding the relationship between your ideas. In this way, transitions act as the glue that binds the components of your argument or discussion into a unified, coherent, and persuasive whole. Types of Transitions Now that you have a general idea of how to go about developing effective transitions in your writing, let us briefly discuss the types of transitions your writing will use. The types of transitions available to you are as diverse as the circumstances in which you need to use them. A transition can be a single word, a phrase, a sentence, or an entire paragraph. In each case it functions the same way: first, the transition either directly summarizes the content of a preceding sentence, paragraph, or section, or it implies that summary. Then it helps the reader anticipate or comprehend the new information that you wish to present. Transitions between Sections--Particularly in longer works, it may be necessary to include transitional paragraphs that summarize for the reader the information just covered and specify the relevance of this information to the discussion in the following section. Transitions between Paragraphs--If you have done a good job of arranging paragraphs so that the content of one leads logically to the next, the transition will highlight a relationship that already exists by summarizing the previous paragraph and suggesting something of the content of the paragraph that follows. A transition between paragraphs can be a word or two (however, for example, similarly), a phrase, or a sentence. Transitions within Paragraphs--As with transitions between sections and paragraphs, transitions within paragraphs act as cues by helping readers to anticipate what is coming before they read it. Within paragraphs, transitions tend to be single words or short phrases. Transitional Expressions Effectively constructing each transition often depends upon your ability to identify words or phrases that will indicate for the reader the kind of logical relationships you want to convey. The table below should make it easier for you to find these words or phrases. Whenever you have trouble finding a word, phrase, or sentence to serve as an effective transition, refer to the information in the table for assistance. Look in the left column of the table for the kind of logical relationship you are trying to express. Then look in the right column of the table for examples of words or phrases that express this logical relationship. Conclusions Adapted from: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/ What this handout is about... This handout will explain the functions of conclusions, offer strategies for writing effective ones, help you evaluate your drafted conclusions, and suggest conclusion strategies to avoid. About Conclusions Introductions and conclusions can be the most difficult parts of papers to write. While the body is often easier to write, it needs a frame around it. An introduction and conclusion frame your thoughts and bridge your ideas for the reader. Just as your introduction acts as a bridge that transports your readers from their own lives into the "place" of your analysis, your conclusion can provide a bridge to help your readers make the transition back to their daily lives. Such a conclusion will help them see why all your analysis and information should matter to them after they put the paper down. Why bother writing a good conclusion? Your conclusion is your chance to have the last word on the subject. The conclusion allows you to have the final word on the issues you have raised in your paper, to summarize your thoughts, to demonstrate the importance of your ideas, and to propel your reader to a new view of the subject. It is also your opportunity to make a good final impression and to end on a positive note. Your conclusion can go beyond the confines of the assignment. The conclusion pushes beyond the boundaries of the prompt and allows you to consider broader issues, make new connections, and elaborate on the significance of your findings. Your conclusion should make your readers glad they read your paper. Your conclusion gives your reader something to take away that will help them see things differently or appreciate your topic in personally relevant ways. It can suggest broader implications that will not only interest your reader, but also enrich your reader's life in some way. It is your gift to the reader. Strategies for Writing an Effective Conclusion One or more of the following strategies may help you write an effective conclusion. Play the "So What" Game. If you're stuck and feel like your conclusion isn't saying anything new or interesting, ask a friend to read it with you. Whenever you make a statement from your conclusion, ask the friend to say, "So what?" or "Why should anybody care?" Then ponder that question and answer it. Here's how it might go: You: Basically, I'm just saying that education was important to Douglass. Friend: So what? You: Well, it was important because it was a key to him feeling like a free and equal citizen. Friend: Why should anybody care? You: That's important because plantation owners tried to keep slaves from being educated so that they could maintain control. When Douglass obtained an education, he undermined that control personally. You can also use this strategy on your own, asking yourself "So What?" as you develop your ideas or your draft. Return to the theme or themes in the introduction. This strategy brings the reader full circle. For example, if you begin by describing a scenario, you can end with the same scenario as proof that your essay is helpful in creating a new understanding. You may also refer to the introductory paragraph by using key words or parallel concepts and images that you also used in the introduction. Synthesize, don't summarize: Include a brief summary of the paper's main points, but don't simply repeat things that were in your paper. Instead, show your reader how the points you made and the support and examples you used fit together. Pull it all together for them. Include a provocative insight or quotation from the research or reading you did for your paper. Propose a course of action, a solution to an issue, or questions for further study. This can redirect your reader's thought process and help her to apply your info and ideas to her own life or to see the broader implications. Point to broader implications. For example, if your paper examines the Greensboro sit-ins or another event in the Civil Rights Movement, you could point out its impact on the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. A paper about the style of writer Virginia Woolf could point to her influence on other writers or on later feminists. Strategies to Avoid Beginning with an unnecessary, overused phrase such as "in conclusion," "in summary," or "in closing." Although these phrases can work in speeches, they come across as wooden and trite in writing. Stating the thesis for the very first time in the conclusion. Introducing a new idea or subtopic in your conclusion. Ending with a rephrased thesis statement without any substantive changes. Making sentimental, emotional appeals (out of character with the rest of an analytical paper). Including evidence (quotations, statistics, etc.) that should be in the body of the paper. Four Kinds of Ineffective Conclusions The "That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It" Conclusion. This conclusion just restates the thesis and is usually painfully short. It does not push the ideas forward. People write this kind of conclusion when they can't think of anything else to say. Example: In conclusion, Frederick Douglass was, as we have seen, a pioneer in American education, proving that education was a major force for social change with regard to slavery. The "Sherlock Holmes: Conclusion. Sometimes writers will state the thesis for the very first time in the conclusion. You might be tempted to use this strategy if you don't want to give everything away too early in your paper. You may think it would be more dramatic to keep the reader in the dark until the end and then "wow" her with your main idea, much like a Sherlock Holmes mystery. The reader, however, does not expect a mystery, but an analytical discussion of your topic in an academic style, with the main argument (thesis) stated up front. Example: (After a paper that lists numerous incidents from the book but never says what these incidents reveal about Douglass and his views on education): So, as the evidence above demonstrates, Douglass saw education as a way to undermine the slaveholders' power and also an important step toward freedom. The "America the Beautiful"/"I Am Woman"/"We Shall Overcome" Conclusion. This kind of conclusion usually draws on emotion to make its appeal, but while this emotion and even sentimentality may be very heartfelt, it is usually out of character with the rest of an analytical paper. A more sophisticated commentary, rather than emotional praise, would be a more fitting tribute to the topic. Bad Example: Because of the efforts of fine Americans like Frederick Douglass, countless others have seen the shining beacon of light that is education. His example was a torch that lit the way for others. Frederick Douglass was truly an American hero. The "Grab Bag" Conclusion. This kind of conclusion includes extra information that the writer found or thought of but couldn't integrate into the main paper. You may find it hard to leave out details that you discovered after hours of research and thought, but adding random facts and bits of evidence at the end of an otherwise-well-organized essay can just create confusion. Bad Example: In addition to being an educational pioneer, Frederick Douglass provides an interesting case study for masculinity in the American South. He also offers historians an interesting glimpse into slave resistance when he confronts Covey, the overseer. His relationships with female relatives reveal the importance of family in the slave community. Sources Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, edited and with introduction by Houston A. Baker, Jr., New York: Penguin Books, 1986. http://www.toptags.com/aama/books/book10.htm Strategies for Writing a Conclusion. Literacy Education Online, St. Cloud State University. 18 May 2005 . Conclusions. Nesbitt-Johnston Writing Center, Hamilton College. 17 May 2005 . Excerpts from Professional Literary Criticism Gender and Authorial Limitation In Faulkner's "A Rose For Emily." (Special Issue: William Faulkner) Faulkner's extensive authorial power in "A Rose for Emily" looms evident in the design of a large Southern gothic house, in the outline of three complex generations of a Southern community, and in the development of a plot that dutifully weaves and unweaves a mystery through a limited omniscient point of view. However, Faulkner also reveals and revels in an authorial lack of knowledge when presented with writing a "lady" into a patriarchal Southern text. Although sole author of "A Rose for Emily," this writer knows little about what went on in his lady's, Miss Emily Grierson's, household. Knowledge of Emily proves unavailable to him (and consequently to the reader) for about thirty years before we meet her -- before her father dies and lets her out of the house -- and also for the last twenty-seven years of her life. He writes, "her front door remained closed,"(1) and with these words, he both instigates and reveals an extended period of limited knowledge. William Faulkner opens "A Rose for Emily" with a lengthy fifty-six-word single sentence that both encapsulates a community's reaction to death and displays an immediate authorial compulsion to describe a scene through gender differences. This author situates his story in a line-up of men and women conjoined in the desire to attend Miss Emily's funeral but divided in the motivation assigned by the author: When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant -- a combined gardener and cook -- had seen in at least ten years. (p. 119) Gender motivation splits between respect and curiosity, affection for a representation and intention to view the insides of a house. The subordinate object of the sentence is "Miss Emily," the woman who provides the reason to feel "affection" and to "see," and "our whole town" hovers as subject of the sentence. The stylistics of Faulkner's language thus serves to subordinate Emily, ostensibly the subject of the tale, and to elevate the town as the truer subject. Reading Emily as subordinate subject matter to the town renders peripheral much criticism regarding the story, for most of the scholarship addresses the motives for Emily's actions toward Homer Barron. These motives range from sexual repression and Oedipal issues to provision of symbols designating the passing of the Old South to the new.(2) While scholars have treated the story as a murder mystery and have struggled with the revelation of Emily's "secret," a more pervasive secret reigns over the story: why does Faulkner create a narrator with indefinable gender to tell this particular story? Until recently the narrator has been relegated to a marginal place of importance in the tale. Hal Blythe's 1988 essay offers provocative discussion of the narrator; however, Blythe assumes the narrator to be male.(3) Michael Burduck's 1990 essay critiques Blythe's article on exactly this count and argues for a female narrator.(4) Both of these approaches preserve the binary positions that words such as "male" and "female" signify in language. Because Faulkner has left the gender of the narrator undetermined in the text, it seems that postmodern critics assume he meant one or the other and that part of the conundrum of the tale is to solve the gender of the narrator. The often unspoken concern underlying the quest for gender resolution in this tale is Faulkner's "feminism." The question of the canonized male writer's relationship to feminism proves vastly complicated. Laura Claridge and Elizabeth Langland, in their 1990 groundbreaking work, Out of Bounds: Male Writers and Gender(ed) Criticism, point out the complex layers of this difficult question: . . . to write against patriarchy as a male fettered by it does not necessarily result in writing for liberation of gender bondage, a primary aim of philosophical and practical feminism. `Feminist' tends to imply a political agenda -- the granting of full economic, political, and social equality to women. It implies as well a commitment to a woman's autonomy and a recognition of her individual and independent importance. Although many male writers are interested in a space or possibility for expression coded as `feminine,' they are not necessarily interested in particular women and their plights -- or even the general plight of the generic `woman.' A male writer may simply need the space of what he or his culture terms the feminine in which to express himself more fully because he experiences the patriarchal construction of his masculinity as a construction. He may, that is, appropriate the feminine to enlarge himself, a process not incompatible with contempt for actual women.(5) From "our whole town" emerges the narrator of the story who poses an interesting limited omniscient narrating position for Faulkner to control. The author designates this narrator both as part of the "our whole town" and part of the supposed objectivity through whom the reader must envision the story. Faulkner designs this narrative position as a reflection of his own stance toward patriarchal societal structures and toward classic realist fiction. He stands firmly within the constructs, yet by calling attention to this vantage point and its inadequacies, by deploying a bisexual narration into the text, and by presenting Emily's house both as intimate space for the character as well as impregnable barrier to its own author/creator, Faulkner dismantles the structure of classic realist fiction. Both narrator and author participate in and attempt to render beyond the powerful systems that construct them. Faulkner's narrator suggests an authorial bisexuality through use of a disengendered pronoun; the gender of the narrator remains unclear throughout the story. We do not know immediately whether this narrator feels affection toward or turns a curious eye on Miss Emily and the funeral events, and these options provide the engendered distinctions suggested by Faulkner at the beginning of the tale. More importantly, we do not know whether he or she proves capable of both motivations while participating in the passing away of Emily Grierson and in ascertaining fragments of her past. Minrose C. Gwin suggests Faulkner's capabilities of exacerbating male and female elements in the self and in writing as a bisexual connection to his female subjects and to their power as disruptive agents in a text.(6) The bisexual possibilities housed in the narrator of "A Rose for Emily" reflect just such capabilities in Faulkner and attest to his attempts to interrogate the gender control inherent in authorship. In choosing to disengender the narrator pronoun, Faulkner offers what Catherine Belsey refers to as an "implicit critique" about the "nature of fiction" itself.(7) "A Rose for Emily" asserts that gender often controls the eye of a story, but it does not necessarily control the behavior of a character when he or she remains out of sight. By not outwardly claiming an engendered visionary stance for his or her embodiment, the narrator also creates a bisexual oscillation in language. This particular narrator creates the "permanent state of tension" defined by bisexual writing: "it is generated and regenerated by an interaction between the feminine and masculine, between self and other" (Gwin, p. 10). In such writing, the woman character must "traverse the spaces between presence and absence, between her own subjectivity and her bounded status in male discourse" (p. 14), and Emily does just that. She abides Faulkner's attempts to write her life and the narrator's attempts to speak her life; she lives her life in the white space of the page. While Faulkner busily writes and the narrator dutifully tells, Emily craftily arranges -- remember that she has an artistic flair exhibited in her china-painting lessons -- skeletal bone and one single hair into an image to display at the end of the story. Although the reader witnesses Faulkner's words on the page and the scenes described by the narrator, he or she witnesses nothing of the process of Emily's art. Emily thus remains present and absent simultaneously -- present when Faulkner's words and the narrator's scenarios capture her, absent when the words cannot penetrate beyond the door leading to her actions. Miss Grierson ultimately proves unrepresentable: a memory, an image, a nightmare, an inhabitant of intimate space alone, a mind piece, a hyperbolic omission. And Faulkner ultimately asserts his powerlessness to represent her. The narrator does suggest that the community women at least understand the viability of secrets as regards Miss Emily and her house. These women encourage the men to act upon their suspicions. The first concerns the smell that ensues "after her father's death and a short time after her sweetheart -- the one we believed would marry her -- had deserted her." One of the neighbors (and Faulkner makes a specific point of its being a female neighbor) makes an issue of the smell to the judge: A neighbor, a woman, complained to the mayor, Judge Stevens, eighty years old. "But what will you have me do about it madam?" he said. "Why, send her word to stop it," the woman said. "Isn't there a law?" "I'm sure that won't be necessary," Judge Stevens said. "It's probably just a snake or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard. I'll speak to him about it." The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who came in diffident deprecation. "We really must do something about it, Judge. I'd be the last one in the world to bother Miss Emily, but we've got to do something." That night the Board of Aldermen met -- three greybeards and one younger man, a member of the rising generation. "It's simple enough," he said. "Send her word to have her place cleaned up. Give her a certain time to do it in, and if she don't . . ." "Dammit, sir," Judge Stevens said, "will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?" (p. 122) At least three interesting issues arise from this passage. The judge only feels it necessary to act after a man complains, but the fact remains that a woman initiated the idea of the smell. Both the man and the woman think that a "word" would amend the situation. Inside the text, then, rests the thought that a word exists to facilitate a change regarding Miss Emily's house; the men state it and the women state it. What this word might be goes unsaid, however. And finally, the issue of the smell itself exudes from the house, from an intimate dwelling, and threatens to permeate the text. Faulkner tries to penetrate this house with words, but he cannot find them. Instead he and Judge Stevens send men to cover over the odor from outside the house. Neither proves ready to discover this particular intimacy. Gaston Bachelard discusses odors and intimacy and houses. He says that only the dweller inside the house, alone, houses the memories that belong to any particular house and are generated by any particular smell associated with the house.(8) When the intimate goings-on inside Emily's house threaten to waft out into the neighborhood, the community wants it covered with words, wants "a word" to stop what they reluctantly and repugnantly sense. Faulkner and the judge stop the smell and the scene with lime, the word and the substance. Interestingly, the word "lime" has as one of its variant meanings "to paint or cover a surface with a composition of lime and water; whitewash." Not only do these skulking men rid the community of the smell, but they whitewash the source of the smell; they eliminate a sense. They protect their "idol" standing in the window, and thereby collude in the night to comply with and to shield a lady and a murder just as Faulkner colludes in protecting himself from knowing a woman like Emily by limiting her murderous activities to those that take place behind doors he masterfully describes but refuses to penetrate. In a pure and public patriarchy, no language exists to address the foul smell exuding from a woman's house. By definition, a "lady" would not have such a house. To address Emily in such a way would have negated her standing as a lady, and since destroying ladies proves undesirable in a patriarchy, only the option to collude unwittingly in her behavior may be followed. Faulkner's desire to get inside this house, yet his unwillingness or his inability simply to enter in while Emily lives, establishes Emily as psycho-barrier. This woman thwarts Faulkner's ability to negotiate the intimate space he has, as author, created to house her. In order to demonstrate further his authorial lack, Faulkner lays bare the methods of creating classic realist fiction. As Belsey reminds us, classic realism dominates as a literary form of the nineteenth century and arguably of the twentieth (p. 45), and it mainly entails the creation of an "enigma" who persistently calls attention to the cultural and signifying systems, the inclusion of common plot focal points such as murder, the ongoing movement toward closure and understanding for the reader, and reestablishment of an appropriate order within the plot. In "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner abides by the form in that he provides Emily as enigma, Homer Barron's murder as focal point, and the bisexual narrator to exhibit the conscious voice of the tale, but the revelation of Homer Barron's skeleton, coupled with the gray hair at the end of the tale, affords an irregular closure and limited "knowingness" for the reader. Although the story closes in the sense that its words cease, no mention of restoration of any order reveals itself through the language of the tale. Faulkner stops writing, and the narrator stops narrating at the sight of the unlikely coupling of the skeleton and the hair. The narrator sees but ceases to narrate at the sight. The ideology that requires closure proves incapacitated by an author who forces his narrator to facilitate such a horror. Faulkner thus dismantles the closure and the restoration of order required by classic realism. He also displays the limits of his authority as omniscient creator. His text ends in awkward gawking; it ends in image and smell: the hair and an acrid smell. Faulkner subtly prepares the reader for the narrator's failure to relay what he sees in the mock-closing gesture by gradually dismantling his or her perspective from a limited to a decidedly unwilling omniscience. The details required to know something begin to evade the narrator as early as section Ill of the story. When Emily purchases the arsenic, the druggist harbors a fear regarding the use to which Emily intends to put the poison. When the man asks her what she wants it for, Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up. The Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn't come back. (p. 126) The druggist has too much "affection" for her to "see" clearly what he saw in her eyes. He reveals the purchase to the community members, and they collectively decide that she will commit suicide. When Miss Emily clearly continues to live, the community refuses to invest in an alternative interpretation about the arsenic. They simply forget it or suppress it. This druggist and the community members thus house information that our narrator could pursue, but he or she does not. He or she remains too embedded in the construct of the community to interrogate his neighbors, a reflection again of a Faulkner who remains too much embedded in the construct of patriarchy to see a great distance beyond it. In section IV of the story, the ladies coerce the Baptist minister into calling upon Miss Emily to discuss her gallivanting in public with Homer Barron. The minister does visit her, and the narrator relates, "He would never divulge what happened during that interview, but he refused to go back again" (p. 126). The minister knows something that the narrator does not. A piece of information about an interaction with Emily lies trapped inside a character in the text, never to be revealed. Our writer and our narrator do not retrieve it. Clearly, they privilege the harboring of information over the gathering of knowledge. In section V, the Negro manservant who lives with Miss Emily is never questioned as a source of knowledge. When Miss Emily dies, "The Negro met the first ladies at the front door and let them in, with their hushed, sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he disappeared. He walked right through the house and out the back and was not seen again" (p. 129). He walks out of the story, most likely with crucial information, but being African-American and thereby an insignificant part of the patriarchal design, his information remains unimportant, so the narrator lets him leave. This narrator, even when confronted with the most exciting part of the mystery, refuses to participate on the front lines. When the door to the bedroom housing the skeleton of Homer and the gray hair of Miss Emily is finally to be forced open, the narrative "we" changes to the distant "they": Already we [my italics] knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in orty years, and which would have to be forced. They [my italics! waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it. (p. 129) This narrator only wishes to be a reticent part of the discovery. He or she does not want to "know," nor to act. In this way, Faulkner severely restricts even a limited narrative omniscience. Like the narrator, he has reservations about forcing the door of knowledge, particularly as it regards gender and the death of a too familiar social structure. Some of this concealment proves typical of the constraints imposed by the classic realist text: The classic realist text is constructed on the basis of enigma. Information is initially withheld on condition of a promise' to the reader that it will finally be revealed. The disclosure of this 'truth' brings the story to an end. The movement of narrative is both towards disclosure--the end of the story--and towards concealment--prolonging itself by delaying the end of the story through a series of 'reticences,' as Barthes calls them, snares for the reader, partial answers to the questions raised, equivocations. (Belsey, pp. 55-56) In "A Rose for Emily," however, the revelation of the skeleton and the hair discloses much more than any promise offered or any question posed. Evidence of the murder indicts the community as accessories to the murder of Homer Barron. This murder occurs in the white space of the text, behind the word "lady" and many other such words. No one dares to investigate because a definition would have to be dismantled as well as an entire ideology. By refusing to penetrate this word and to include in its meaning the possibility of committing murder, the entire community becomes involved in a crime. Ignorance becomes criminal; not-knowing correlates with acts of collusion. This community allows a human being to die in order to preserve themselves from the task of investigating a word, "lady," a woman, "Miss Emily," and a world within a house. The Emily on the page of the text proves a subversive cover for the activity occurring in the white space beneath the eyes of the patriarchy. Emily does in fact exist while the patriarchal community is not looking. She exists inside her house, and this house plays an intricate role in the authorial limitation presented by Faulkner. Negotiating the meaning of images, of structures and particularly of intimate space provides the fundamental issue in this fiction. In queuing the men and the women outside Emily's house, Faulkner demonstrates a polarity of interests that he encodes with differing gender motivations. The men want to feel respect for a monument, a structure erected as representative of a human being; the women want to see the inside of the house. Gaston Bachelard argues in The Poetics of space for the ability to "read a house," or to "read a room," "since both room and house are psychological diagrams that guide writers and poets in their analysis of intimacy" (p. 38). Accommodating these terms to the Grierson house situates the grouping outside the structure as possible readers waiting for the text to open. Faulkner thus sets up dual enigmas for the readers in the text and the readers of the text, that of Emily the monument, and that of the house and its intimacies. In his gender division, he assigns men with concern for the enigma and women with concern for intimacy. In his assignment of a disengendered pronoun to the narrator, the narrator becomes a straddler perhaps interested in the monument and in the house. The men's affection renders the house something larger than life; the women's curiosity renders the house an intimate container. In choosing the Grierson house as that enigma about to be entered and discerned, Faulkner agrees to enter into intimate, dynamic and revealing poetic space: . . . the house is one of the greatest powers of integration for the thoughts, memories and dreams of mankind. The binding principle in this integration is the daydream. Past, present and future give the house different dynamisms, which often interfere, at times opposing, at others, stimulating one another. (Bachelard, p. 6) Interestingly, in the first paragraph of the story, Faulkner aligns the community; in the second paragraph, he discusses the outside of the house; and in the third paragraph, the house does exactly as Bachelard prescribes: it affords Faulkner entrance to discussion of Emily's past. Thereby, the narrative of Emily's past intertwines with the present people aligned to view her at her house. This supposed glance into Emily's life immediately becomes entangled with the lives of the spectators themselves. The stories of the house will engulf and include them as they attempt to read. Faulkner attempts in this collusive suggestion to ascertain the significance of wanting to know a secret about an other, an Emily, but again as Bachelard points out, "All we communicate to others is an orientation towards what is secret without ever being able to tell the secret objectively. What is secret never has total objectivity" (p. 13). Faulkner can only take the reader on an approach toward the Grierson house, an intimate space filled with specific secrets, which affords readers the possibility of an understanding of the patriarchal systems that awarded Emily her otherness. We think that the story, in its classic realist fiction guise, will provide a revelation, a disclosure, but merely the evidence of at least one secret will be revealed, the secret of the unknowables and the state of "being without" knowledge. "Common sense" codes believed to be truths facilitate lack of knowledge. Codes about asking women questions, assumptions about what a woman would use arsenic for, all are revealed for the fragile inabilities of each and every person abiding patriarchal society to admit to the collusion in which they participate, to admit to the many murders of personhood that occur beneath their noses--literally, Miss Emily's neighbors could have smelled this one--due to this gap-filled framework: Common sense consists of a number of social meanings and the particular ways of understanding the world which guarantee them. These meanings, which inevitably favor the interests of particular social groups, become fixed and widely accepted as true irrespective of sectional interests . . . . All common sense relies on a naive view of language as transparent and true, undistorted by such things as 'ideology', a term which is reserved for explanations representing opposed sectional interests. Common-sense knowledge is not a monolithic, fixed body of knowledge. It is often contradictory and subject to change. It is not always necessarily conservative in its implications. Its political effects depend on the particular context in which it is articulated. However, its ower comes from its claim to be natural, obvious and therefore true.(9) Faulkner writes, "[W]e had long though of [the Griersons] as a tableau" (p. 123); this collective type of thinking represents a common sense about how to think of such a family. "So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated . . . " (p. 123); the collective community even feels common emotions and negates other emotions. "We did not say she was crazy then" (p. 124); a group will know by virtue of common sense when craziness occurs. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will" (p. 124). The collective has a commonsense memory and a common-sense rationale for Emily's behavior. This common-sense "we" even has access to the same set of eyes: "When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows -- sort of tragic and serene" (p. 124). It is common sense to see her this way; everyone, "we," saw her this way. The common-sense language in Faulkner designs the oppressive situation in which Emily had to live. Either a "we" or a "they" designs language about her that contains and explains her actions. However, ultimately she acts and slips behind this language. A common-sense language cannot write her. To write about her consistently, Faulkner would have had to drop the common-sense language and to have entered the house during the time she lived there. To do so would have been to penetrate the walls that protect a lady, and Faulkner does not grant himself such power. He opts for politeness and lack of knowledge; to have proceeded otherwise would have constituted a language rape for a man invested in the idea of a lady. The common-sense level of the narrative language portrays a Faulkner writing Emily as a pivotal agent embodying the end of the Old South. Such a language requires many skirtings, many unperused years, an unperused house, and many unasked questions. Emily resists such purified symbol-making by leaving Homer Barron in the bcd with her hair, and Faulkner resists the common-sense language by allowing the story to end in an image of words describing the body and the hair. Ultimately Emily and Faulkner collude in dismantling the structures that bind one to a form of literature, to a patriarchal structure, to a common-sense language. In other words, Emily daily refuses to participate in the symbol-making of her as a precious lady of the Old South, an idol, and icon. Although she has almost thirty years to bury Homer Barron in the ground, she simply does not. She keeps him in the bcd and either sleeps with him throughout these years, or she artfully leaves the hair and crafts a pillow indentation to signify the possibility that she could have done so behind the backs of the community and behind the discourse that symbolized her. She becomes hyperbolic omission. By admitting to not-knowing Emily, by leaving her to act beyond the language of the story, Faulkner subverts his own discourse and displays the discourse for its constraining devices. Faulkner draws attention to the construct of gender as a posture that infiltrates literature, affects and burdens its language, and adds non-negotiable layers to the ability to tell stories. "As individuals we are not the mere objects of language but the sites of discursive struggle, a struggle which takes place in the consciousness of the individual" (Weedon, p. 106). The unrepresentable Miss Emily acts as site for the struggle to exist between the descriptive terms "idol" and "idle"--Miss Emily was neither--and William Faulkner designs himself as disempowered authorial site struggling for a language that delivers anything like a lady to literary discourse. (9) Chris Weedon, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987), p. 77. (1) William Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily," Collected Stories (New York: Vintage, 1977), p. 128. (2) Dennis W. Allen, "Horror and Perverse Delight: Faulkner's `A Rose for Emily'," Modern Fiction Studies, 30 (Winter 1984), 688. (3) Hal Blythe, "The Chivalric Narrator of `A Rose for Emily'," University of Mississippi Studies in English, 6 (1988), 280-284. (4) Michael Burduck, "Another View of Faulkner's Narrator in `A Rose for Emily'." University of Mississippi Studies in English, 8 (1990), 209-211. (5) Laura Claridge and Elizabeth Langland, Out of Bounds: Male Writers and Gender(ed) Criticism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990), pp. 3-4. (6) Minrose C. Gwin, 7he Feminine and Faulkner: Reading (Beyond) Sexual Difference (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990), pp. 10- 12. (7) Catherine Belsey, "Constructing the Subject: deconstructing the text," in Feminist Criticism and Social Change, ed. Judith Newton and Deborah Rosenfelt (New York: Methuen, 1985), p. 63. (8) Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), p.13. Publisher Mississippi State University Publication The Mississippi Quarterly Subject Literature/writing Format Magazine/Journal ISSN 0026-637X Issues per Year 4 Volume v47 Issue n3 Published 1994-06-22 Role Type Name Author n/a Renee R. Curry Person Criticism and interpretation William Faulkner Short Stories for Class Discussion A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children Gabriel Garcia Marquez           On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench. The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn't get up, impeded by his enormous wings.           Frightened by that nightmare, Pelayo ran to get Elisenda, his wife, who was putting compresses on the sick child, and he took her to the rear of the courtyard. They both looked at the fallen body with a mute stupor. He was dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away and sense of grandeur he might have had. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked were forever entangled in the mud. They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar. Then they dared speak to him, and he answered in an incomprehensible dialect with a strong sailor's voice. That was how they skipped over the inconvenience of the wings and quite intelligently concluded that he was a lonely castaway from some foreign ship wrecked by the storm. And yet, they called in a neighbor woman who knew everything about life and death to see him, and all she needed was one look to show them their mistake.           "He's an angel," she told them. "He must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old that the rain knocked him down."           On the following day everyone knew that a flesh-and-blood angel was held captive in Pelayo's house. Against the judgment of the wise neighbor woman, for whom angels in those times were the fugitive survivors of a spiritual conspiracy, they did not have the heart to club him to death. Pelayo watched over him all afternoon from the kitchen, armed with his bailiff's club, and before going to bed he dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop. In the middle of the night, when the rain stopped, Pelayo and Elisenda were still killing crabs. A short time afterward the child woke up without a fever and with a desire to eat. Then they felt magnanimous and decided to put the angel on a raft with fresh water and provisions for three days and leave him to his fate on the high seas. But when they went out into the courtyard with the first light of dawn, they found the whole neighborhood in front of the chicken coop having fun with the angel, without the slightest reverence, tossing him things to eat through the openings in the wire as if weren't a supernatural creature but a circus animal.           Father Gonzaga arrived before seven o'clock, alarmed at the strange news. By that time onlookers less frivolous than those at dawn had already arrived and they were making all kinds of conjectures concerning the captive's future. The simplest among them thought that he should be named mayor of the world. Others of sterner mind felt that he should be promoted to the rank of five-star general in order to win all wars. Some visionaries hoped that he could be put to stud in order to implant the earth a race of winged wise men who could take charge of the universe. But Father Gonzaga, before becoming a priest, had been a robust woodcutter. Standing by the wire, he reviewed his catechism in an instant and asked them to open the door so that he could take a close look at that pitiful man who looked more like a huge decrepit hen among the fascinated chickens. He was lying in the corner drying his open wings in the sunlight among the fruit peels and breakfast leftovers that the early risers had thrown him. Alien to the impertinences of the world, he only lifted his antiquarian eyes and murmured something in his dialect when Father Gonzaga went into the chicken coop and said good morning to him in Latin. The parish priest had his first suspicion of an imposter when he saw that he did not understand the language of God or know how to greet His ministers. Then he noticed that seen close up he was much too human: he had an unbearable smell of the outdoors, the back side of his wings was strewn with parasites and his main feathers had been mistreated by terrestrial winds, and nothing about him measured up to the proud dignity of angels. The he came out of the chicken coop and in a brief sermon warned the curious against the risks of being ingenuous. He reminded them that the devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in order to confuse the unwary. He argued that if wings were not the essential element in determining the different between a hawk and an airplane, they were even less so in the recognition of angels. Nevertheless, he promised to write a letter to his bishop so that the latter would write his primate so that the latter would write to the Supreme Pontiff in order to get the final verdict from the highest courts.           His prudence fell on sterile hearts. The news of the captive angel spread with such rapidity that after a few hours the courtyard had the bustle of a marketplace and they had to call in troops with fixed bayonets to disperse the mob that was about to knock the house down. Elisenda, her spine all twisted from sweeping up so much marketplace trash, then got the idea of fencing in the yard and charging five cents admission to see the angel.           The curious came from far away. A traveling carnival arrived with a flying acrobat who buzzed over the crowd several times, but no one paid any attention to him because his wings were not those of an angel but, rather, those of a sidereal bat. The most unfortunate invalids on earth came in search of health: a poor woman who since childhood has been counting her heartbeats and had run out of numbers; a Portuguese man who couldn't sleep because the noise of the stars disturbed him; a sleepwalker who got up at night to undo the things he had done while awake; and many others with less serious ailments. In the midst of that shipwreck disorder that made the earth tremble, Pelayo and Elisenda were happy with fatigue, for in less than a week they had crammed their rooms with money and the line of pilgrims waiting their turn to enter still reached beyond the horizon.           The angel was the only one who took no part in his own act. He spent his time trying to get comfortable in his borrowed nest, befuddled by the hellish heat of the oil lamps and sacramental candles that had been placed along the wire. At first they tried to make him eat some mothballs, which, according to the wisdom of the wise neighbor woman, were the food prescribed for angels. But he turned them down, just as he turned down the papal lunches that the pentinents brought him, and they never found out whether it was because he was an angel or because he was an old man that in the end ate nothing but eggplant mush. His only supernatural virtue seemed to be patience. Especially during the first days, when the hens pecked at him, searching for the stellar parasites that proliferated in his wings, and the cripples pulled out feathers to touch their defective parts with, and even the most merciful threw stones at him, trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing. The only time they succeeded in arousing him was when they burned his side with an iron for branding steers, for he had been motionless for so many hours that they thought he was dead. He awoke with a start, ranting in his hermetic language and with tears in his eyes, and he flapped his wings a couple of times, which brought on a whirlwind of chicken dung and lunar dust and a gale of panic that did not seem to be of this world. Although many thought that his reaction had not been one of rage but of pain, from then on they were careful not to annoy him, because the majority understood that his passivity was not that of a her taking his ease but that of a cataclysm in repose.           Father Gonzaga held back the crowd's frivolity with formulas of maidservant inspiration while awaiting the arrival of a final judgment on the nature of the captive. But the mail from Rome showed no sense of urgency. They spent their time finding out in the prisoner had a navel, if his dialect had any connection with Aramaic, how many times he could fit on the head of a pin, or whether he wasn't just a Norwegian with wings. Those meager letters might have come and gone until the end of time if a providential event had not put and end to the priest's tribulations.           It so happened that during those days, among so many other carnival attractions, there arrived in the town the traveling show of the woman who had been changed into a spider for having disobeyed her parents. The admission to see her was not only less than the admission to see the angel, but people were permitted to ask her all manner of questions about her absurd state and to examine her up and down so that no one would ever doubt the truth of her horror. She was a frightful tarantula the size of a ram and with the head of a sad maiden. What was most heartrending, however, was not her outlandish shape but the sincere affliction with which she recounted the details of her misfortune. While still practically a child she had sneaked out of her parents' house to go to a dance, and while she was coming back through the woods after having danced all night without permission, a fearful thunderclap rent the sky in tow and through the crack came the lightning bolt of brimstone that changed her into a spider. Her only nourishment came from the meatballs that charitable souls chose to toss into her mouth. A spectacle like that, full of so much human truth and with such a fearful lesson, was bound to defeat without even trying that of a haughty angel who scarcely deigned to look at mortals. Besides, the few miracles attributed to the angel showed a certain mental disorder, like the blind man who didn't recover his sight but grew three new teeth, or the paralytic who didn't get to walk but almost won the lottery, and the leper whose sores sprouted sunflowers. Those consolation miracles, which were more like mocking fun, had already ruined the angel's reputation when the woman who had been changed into a spider finally crushed him completely. That was how Father Gonzaga was cured forever of his insomnia and Pelayo's courtyard went back to being as empty as during the time it had rained for three days and crabs walked through the bedrooms.           The owners of the house had no reason to lament. With the money they saved they built a two-story mansion with balconies and gardens and high netting so that crabs wouldn't get in during the winter, and with iron bars on the windows so that angels wouldn't get in. Pelayo also set up a rabbit warren close to town and have up his job as a bailiff for good, and Elisenda bought some satin pumps with high heels and many dresses of iridescent silk, the kind worn on Sunday by the most desirable women in those times. The chicken coop was the only thing that didn't receive any attention. If they washed it down with creolin and burned tears of myrrh inside it every so often, it was not in homage to the angel but to drive away the dungheap stench that still hung everywhere like a ghost and was turning the new house into an old one. At first, when the child learned to walk, they were careful that he not get too close to the chicken coop. But then they began to lose their fears and got used to the smell, and before they child got his second teeth he'd gone inside the chicken coop to play, where the wires were falling apart. The angel was no less standoffish with him than with the other mortals, but he tolerated the most ingenious infamies with the patience of a dog who had no illusions. They both came down with the chicken pox at the same time. The doctor who took care of the child couldn't resist the temptation to listen to the angel's heart, and he found so much whistling in the heart and so many sounds in his kidneys that it seemed impossible for him to be alive. What surprised him most, however, was the logic of his wings. They seemed so natural on that completely human organism that he couldn't understand why other men didn't have them too.           When the child began school it had been some time since the sun and rain had caused the collapse of the chicken coop. The angel went dragging himself about here and there like a stray dying man. They would drive him out of the bedroom with a broom and a moment later find him in the kitchen. He seemed to be in so many places at the same time that they grew to think that he'd be duplicated, that he was reproducing himself all through the house, and the exasperated and unhinged Elisenda shouted that it was awful living in that hell full of angels. He could scarcely eat and his antiquarian eyes had also become so foggy that he went about bumping into posts. All he had left were the bare cannulae of his last feathers. Pelayo threw a blanket over him and extended him the charity of letting him sleep in the shed, and only then did they notice that he had a temperature at night, and was delirious with the tongue twisters of an old Norwegian. That was one of the few times they became alarmed, for they thought he was going to die and not even the wise neighbor woman had been able to tell them what to do with dead angels.           And yet he not only survived his worst winter, but seemed improved with the first sunny days. He remained motionless for several days in the farthest corner of the courtyard, where no one would see him, and at the beginning of December some large, stiff feathers began to grow on his wings, the feathers of a scarecrow, which looked more like another misfortune of decreptitude. But he must have known the reason for those changes, for he was quite careful that no one should notice them, that no one should hear the sea chanteys that he sometimes sang under the stars. One morning Elisenda was cutting some bunches of onions for lunch when a wind that seemed to come from the high seas blew into the kitchen. Then she went to the window and caught the angel in his first attempts at flight. They were so clumsy that his fingernails opened a furrow in the vegetable patch and he was on the point of knocking the shed down with the ungainly flapping that slipped on the light and couldn't get a grip on the air. But he did manage to gain altitude. Elisenda let out a sigh of relief, for herself and for him, when she watched him pass over the last houses, holding himself up in some way with the risky flapping of a senile vulture. She kept watching him even when she was through cutting the onions and she kept on watching until it was no longer possible for her to see him, because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea.  The Destructors Graham Greene It was on the eve of August Bank Holiday that the latest recruit became the leader of the Wormsley Common Gang. No one was surprised except Mike, but Mike at the age of nine was surprised by everything. 'If you don't shut your mouth,' somebody once said to him, 'you'll get a frog down it.' After that Mike kept his teeth tightly clamped except when the surprise was too great. The new recruit had been with the gang since the beginning of the summer holidays, and there were possibilities about his brooding silence that all recognized. He never wasted a word even to tell his name until that was required of him by the rules. When he said 'Trevor' it was a statement of fact, not as it would have been with the others a statement of shame or defiance. Nor did anyone laugh except Mike, who finding himself without support and meeting the dark gaze of the newcomer opened his mouth and was quiet again. There was every reason why T., as he was afterwards referred to, should have been an object of mockery - there was his name (and they substituted the initial because otherwise they had no excuse not to laugh at it), the fact that his father, a former architect and present clerk, had 'come down in the world' and that his mother considered herself better than the neighbours. What but an odd quality of danger, of the unpredictable, established him in the gang without any ignoble ceremony of initiation? The gang met every morning in an impromptu car-park, the site of the last bomb of the first blitz. The leader, who was known as Blackie, claimed to have heard it fall, and no one was precise enough in his dates to point out that he would have been one year old and fast asleep on the down platform of Wormsley Common Underground Station. On one side of the car-park leant the first occupied house, No. 3, of the shattered Northwood Terrace - literally leant, for it had suffered from the blast of the bomb and the side walls were supported on wooden struts. A smaller bomb and incendiaries had fallen beyond, so that the house stuck up like a jagged tooth and carried on the further wall relics of its neighbour, a dado, the remains of a fireplace. T., whose words were almost confined to voting 'Yes' or 'No' to the plan of operations proposed each day by Blackie, once startled the whole gang by saying broodingly, 'Wren built that house, father says.' 'Who's Wren?' 'The man who built St Paul's.' 'Who cares?' Blackie said. 'It's only Old Misery's.' Old Misery - whose real name was Thomas - had once been a builder and decorator. He lived alone in the crippled house, doing for himself: once a week you could see him coming back across the common with bread and vegetables, and once as the boys played in the car-park he put his head over the smashed wall of his garden and looked at them. 'Been to the lav,' one of the boys said, for it was common knowledge that since the bombs fell something had gone wrong with the pipes of the house and Old Misery was too mean to spend money on the property. He could do the redecorating himself at cost price, but he had never learnt plumbing. The lav was a wooden shed at the bottom of the narrow garden with a star-shaped hole in the door: it had escaped the blast which had smashed the house next door and sucked out the window-frames of No. 3. The next time the gang became aware of Mr Thomas was more surprising. Blackie, Mike and a thin yellow boy, who for some reason was called by his surname Summers, met him on the common coming back from the market. Mr Thomas stopped them. He said glumly, 'You belong to the lot that play in the car-park?' Mike was about to answer when Blackie stopped him. As the leader he had responsibilities. 'Suppose we are?' he said ambiguously. 'I got some chocolates,' Mr Thomas said. 'Don't like 'em myself. Here you are. Not enough to go round, I don't suppose. There never is,' he added with sombre conviction. He handed over three packets of Smarties. The gang was puzzled and perturbed by this action and tried to explain it away. 'Bet someone dropped them and he picked 'em up,' somebody suggested. 'Pinched 'em and then got in a bleeding funk,' another thought aloud. 'It's a bribe,' Summers said. 'He wants us to stop bouncing balls on his wall.' 'We'll show him we don't take bribes,' Blackie said, and they sacrificed the whole morning to the game of bouncing that only Mike was young enough to enjoy. There was no sign from Mr Thomas. Next day T. astonished them all. He was late at the rendezvous, and the voting for that day's exploit took place without him. At Blackie's suggestion the gang was to disperse in pairs, take buses at random and see how many free rides could be snatched from unwary conductors (the operation was to be carried out in pairs to avoid cheating). They were drawing lots for their companions when T. arrived. 'Where you been, T.?' Blackie asked. 'You can't vote now. You know the rules.' 'I've been there,' T. said. He looked at the ground, as though he had thoughts to hide. 'Where?' 'At Old Misery's.' Mike's mouth opened and then hurriedly closed again with a click. He had remembered the frog. 'At Old Misery's?' Blackie said. There was nothing in the rules against it, but he had a sensation that T. was treading on dangerous ground. He asked hopefully, 'Did you break in?' 'No. I rang the bell.' 'And what did you say?' 'I said I wanted to see his house.' 'What did he do?' 'He showed it me:' 'Pinch anything?' 'No.' 'What did you do it for then?' The gang had gathered round: it was as though an impromptu court were about to form and try some case of deviation. T. said, 'It's a beautiful house,' and still watching the ground, meeting no one's eyes, he licked his lips first one way, then the other. 'What do you mean, a beautiful house?' Blackie asked with scorn. 'It's got a staircase two hundred years old like a corkscrew. Nothing holds it up.' 'What do you mean, nothing holds it up. Does it float?' 'It's to do with opposite forces, Old Misery said.' 'What else?' 'There's panelling.' 'Like in the Blue Boar?' 'Two hundred years old.' 'Is Old Misery two hundred years old?' Mike laughed suddenly and then was quiet again. The meeting was in a serious mood. For the first time since T. had strolled into the car-park on the first day of the holidays his position was in danger. It only needed a single use of his real name and the gang would be at his heels. 'What did you do it for?' Blackie asked. He was just, he had no jealousy, he was anxious to retain T. in the gang if he could. It was the word 'beautiful' that worried him - that belonged to a class world that you could still see parodied at the Wormsley Common Empire by a man wearing a top hat and a monocle, with a haw-haw accent. He was tempted to say, 'My dear Trevor, old chap,' and unleash his hell hounds. 'If you'd broken in,' he said sadly - that indeed would have been an exploit worthy of the gang. 'This was better,' T. said. 'I found out things.' He continued to stare at his feet, not meeting anybody's eye, as though he were absorbed in some dream he was unwilling - or ashamed to share. 'What things?' 'Old Misery's going to be away all tomorrow and Bank Holiday.' Blackie said with relief, 'You mean we could break in?' 'And pinch things?' somebody asked. Blackie said, 'Nobody's going to pinch things. Breaking in that's good enough, isn't it? We don't want any court stuff.' 'I don't want to pinch anything,' T. said. 'I've got a better idea.' 'What is it?' T. raised eyes, as grey and disturbed as the drab August day. 'We'll pull it down,' he said. 'We'll destroy it.' Blackie gave a single hoot of laughter and then, like Mike, fell quiet, daunted by the serious implacable gaze. 'What'd the police be doing all the time?' he said. 'They'd never know. We'd do it from inside. I've found a way in.' He said with a sort of intensity, 'We'd be like worms, don't you see, in an apple. When we came out again there'd be nothing there, no staircase, no panels, nothing but just walls, and then we'd make the walls fall down - somehow.' 'We'd go to jug,' Blackie said. 'Who's to prove? and anyway we wouldn't have pinched anything.' He added without the smallest flicker of glee, 'There wouldn't be anything to pinch after we'd finished.' 'I've never heard of going to prison for breaking things,' Summers said. 'There wouldn't be time,' Blackie said. 'I've seen housebreakers at work.' 'There are twelve of us,' T. said. 'We'd organize.! 'None of us know how...' 'I know,' T. said. He looked across at Blackie. 'Have you got a better plan?' 'Today,' Mike said tactlessly, 'we're pinching free rides. . ." 'Free rides,' T. said. 'Kid stuff. You can stand down, Blackie, if you'd rather . . .' 'The gang's got to vote.' 'Put it up then.' Blackie said uneasily, 'It's proposed that tomorrow and Monday we destroy Old Misery's house.' 'Here, here,' said a fat boy called Joe. 'Who's in favour?' T. said, 'It's carried.' 'How do we start?' Summers asked. 'He'll tell you,' Blackie said. It was the end of his leadership. He went away to the back of the car-park and began to kick a stone, dribbling it this way and that. There was only one old Morris in the park, for few cars were left there except lorries: without an attendant there was no safety. He took a flying kick at the car and scraped a little paint off the rear mudguard. Beyond, paying no more attention to him than to a stranger, the gang had gathered round T.; Blackie was dimly aware of the fickleness of favour. He thought of going home, of never returning, of letting them all discover the hollowness of TA leadership, but suppose after all what T. proposed was possible nothing like it had ever been done before. The fame of the Wormsley Common car-park gang would surely reach around London. There would be headlines in the papers. Even the grown-up gangs who ran the betting at the all-in wrestling and the barrow-boys would hear with respect of how Old Misery's house had been destroyed. Driven by the pure, simple and altruistic ambition of fame for the gang, Blackie came back to where T. stood in the shadow of Old Misery's wall. T. was giving his orders with decision: it was as though this plan had been with him all his life, pondered through the seasons, now in his fifteenth year crystallized with the pain of puberty. 'You,' he said to Mike, 'bring some big nails, the biggest you can find, and a hammer. Anybody who can, better bring a hammer and a screwdriver. We'll need plenty of them. Chisels too. We can't have too many chisels. Can anybody bring a saw?' 'I can,' Mike said. 'Not a child's saw,' T. said. 'A real saw.' Blackie realized he had raised his hand like any ordinary member of the gang. 'Right, you bring one, Blackie. But now there's a difficulty. We want a hacksaw.' 'What's a hacksaw?' someone asked. 'You can get 'em at Woolworth's,' Summers said. The fat boy called Joe said gloomily, 'I knew it would end in a collection.' 'I'll get one myself,' T. said. 'I don't want your money. But I can't buy a sledge-hammer.' Blackie said, 'They are working on No. 15. I know where they'll leave their stuff for Bank Holiday.' 'Then that's all,' T. said. 'We meet here at nine sharp.' 'I've got to go to church,' Mike said. 'Come over the wall and whistle. We'll let you in.' On Sunday morning all were punctual except Blackie, even Mike. Mike had a stroke of luck. His mother felt ill, his father was tired after Saturday night, and he was told to go to church alone with many warnings of what would happen if he strayed. Blackie had difficulty in smuggling out the saw, and then in finding the sledge-hammer at the back of No. 15. He approached the house from a lane at the rear of the garden, for fear of the policeman's beat along the main road. The tired evergreens kept off a stormy sun: another wet Bank Holiday was being prepared over the Atlantic, beginning in swirls of dust under the trees. Blackie climbed the wall into Misery's garden. There was no sign of anybody anywhere. The lav stood like a tomb in a neglected graveyard. The curtains were drawn. The house slept. Blackie lumbered nearer with the saw and the sledge-hammer. Perhaps after all nobody had turned up: the plan had been a wild invention: they had woken wiser. But when he came close to the back door he could hear a confusion of sound hardly louder than a hive in swarm: a clickety-clack, a bang bang, a scraping, a creaking, a sudden painful crack. He thought: it's true; and whistled. They opened the back door to him and he came in. He had at once the impression of organization, very different from the old happy-go-lucky ways under his leadership. For a while he wandered up and down stairs looking for T. Nobody addressed him: he had a sense of great urgency, and already he could begin to see the plan. The interior of the house was being carefully demolished without touching the walls. Summers with hammer and chisel was ripping out the skirting-boards in the ground floor dining-room: he had already smashed the panels of the door. In the same room Joe was heaving up the parquet blocks, exposing the soft wood floorboards over the cellar. Coils of wire came out of the damaged skirting and Mike sat; happily on the floor clipping the wires. On the curved stairs two of the gang were working hard with an inadequate child's saw on the banisters - when they saw Blackie's big saw they signalled for it wordlessly. When he next saw them a quarter of the banisters had been dropped into the hall. He found T. at last in the bathroom - he sat moodily in the least cared-for room in the house, listening to the sounds coming up from below. 'You've really done it,' Blackie said with awe. 'What's going to happen?' 'We've only just begun,' T. said. He looked at the sledgehammer and gave his instructions. 'You stay here and break the , bath and the wash-basin. Don't bother about the pipes. They come later.' Mike appeared at the door. 'I've finished the wires, T.,' he said. 'Good. You've just got to go wandering round now. The kitchen's in the basement. Smash all the china and glass and bottles you can lay hold of. Don't turn on the taps - we don't want a flood - yet. Then go into all the rooms and turn out the drawers. If they are locked get one of the others to break them open. Tear up any papers you find and smash all the ornaments. Better take a carving knife with you from the kitchen. The' bedroom's opposite here. Open the pillows and tear up the sheets. That's enough for the moment. And you, Blackie, when you've finished in here crack the plaster in the passage up with your sledge-hammer.' 'What are you going to do?' Blackie asked. 'I'm looking for something special,' T. said. It was nearly lunch-time before Blackie had finished and went in search of T. Chaos had advanced. The kitchen was a shambles of broken glass and china. The dining-room was stripped of parquet, the skirting was up, the door had been taken off its hinges, and the destroyers had moved up a floor. Streaks of light came in through the closed shutters where they worked with the seriousness of creators - and destruction after all is a form of creation. A kind of imagination had seen this house as it had now become. Mike said, 'I've got to go home for dinner.' 'Who else?' T. asked, but all the others on one excuse or another had brought provisions with them. They squatted in the ruins of the room and swapped unwanted sandwiches. Half an hour for lunch and they were at work again. By the time Mike returned they were on the top floor, and by six the superficial damage was completed. The doors were all off, all the skirtings raised, the furniture pillaged and ripped and smashed - no one could have slept in the house except on a bed of broken plaster. T. gave his orders - eight o'clock next morning, and to escape notice they climbed singly over the garden wall; into the car-park. Only Blackie and T. were left: the light had nearly gone, and when they touched a switch, nothing worked - Mike had done his job thoroughly. 'Did you find anything special?' Blackie asked. T. nodded. 'Come over here,' he said, 'and look.' Out of both pockets he drew bundles of pound notes. 'Old Misery's savings,' he said. 'Mike ripped out the mattress, but he missed them.' 'What are you going to do? Share them?' 'We aren't thieves,' T. said. 'Nobody's going to steal anything from this house. I kept these for you and me - a celebration.' He knelt down on the floor and counted them out - there were seventy in all. 'We'll burn them,' he said, 'one by one,' and taking it in turns they held a note upwards and lit the top corner, so that the flame burnt slowly towards their fingers. The grey ash floated above them and fell on their heads like age. 'I'd like to see Old Misery's face when we are through,' T. a said. 'You hate him a lot?' Blackie asked. 'Of course I don't hate him,' T. said. 'There'd be no fun if I hated him.' The last burning note illuminated his brooding face. 'All this hate and love,' he said, 'it's soft, it's hooey. There's only things, Blackie,' and he looked round the room crowded with the unfamiliar shadows of half things, broken things, former things. 'I'll race you home, Blackie,' he said. Next morning the serious destruction started. Two were missing - Mike and another boy whose parents were off to Southend and Brighton in spite of the slow warm drops that had begun to fall and the rumble of thunder in the estuary like the first guns of the old blitz. 'We've got to hurry,' T. said. Summers was restive. 'Haven't we done enough?' he asked. -, 'I've been given a _bob for slot machines. This is like work.' 'We've hardly started,' T. said. 'Why, there's all the floors left, and the stairs. We haven't taken out a single window. You voted like the others. We are going to destroy this house. There; won't be anything left when we've finished.' They began again on the first floor picking up the top floorboards next the outer wall, leaving the joists exposed. Then they sawed through the joists and retreated into the hall, as what was left of the floor heeled and sank. They had learnt with practice, and the second floor collapsed more easily. By the evening an odd exhilaration seized them as they looked down the great hollow of the house. They ran risks and made mistakes: when they thought of the windows it was too late to reach' them. 'Cor,' Joe said, and dropped a penny down into the, dry rubble-filled well. It cracked and span amongst the broken glass. 'Why did we start this?' Summers asked with astonishment; T. was already on the ground, digging at the rubble, clearing a space along the outer wall. 'Turn on the taps,' he said. 'It's too dark for anyone to see now, and in the morning it won't matter.' The water overtook them on the stairs and fell through the floorless rooms. It was then they heard Mike's whistle at the back. 'Something's wrong,' Blackie said. They could hear his urgent breathing as they unlocked the door. 'The bogies?' Summers asked. 'Old Misery,' Mike said. 'He's on his way,' he said with pride. 'But why?' T. said. 'He told me ...' He protested with the fury of the child he had never been, 'It isn't fair.' 'He was down at Southend,' Mike said, 'and he was on the train coming back. Said it was too cold and wet.' He paused and gazed at the water. 'My, you've had a storm here. Is the roof leaking?' 'How long will he be?' 'Five minutes. I gave Ma the slip and ran.' 'We better clear,' Summers said. 'We've done enough, anyway.' 'Oh no, we haven't. Anybody could do this - ' 'this' was the shattered hollowed house with nothing left but the walls. Yet walls could be preserved. Facades were valuable. They could build inside again more beautifully than before. This could again be a home. He said angrily, 'We've got to finish. Don't move. Let me think.' 'There's no time,' a boy said. 'There's got to be a way,' T. said. 'We couldn't have got this far...' 'We've done a lot,' Blackie said. 'No. No, we haven't. Somebody watch the front' 'We can't do any more.' 'He may come in at the back.' 'Watch the back too.' T. began to plead. 'Just give me a minute and I'll fix it. I swear I'll fix it.' But his authority had gone with his ambiguity. He was only one of the gang. 'Please,' he said. 'Please,' Summers mimicked him, and then suddenly struck home with the fatal name. 'Run along home, Trevor.' T. stood with his back to the rubble like a boxer knocked groggy against the ropes. He had no words as his dreams shook and slid. Then Blackie acted before the gang had time to laugh, pushing Summers backward. 'I'll watch the front, T.,' he said, and cautiously he opened the shutters of the hall. The grey wet common stretched ahead, and the lamps gleamed in the puddles. 'Someone's coming, T. No, it's not him. What's your plan, T.?' 'Tell Mike to go out to the lav and hide close beside it. When he hears me whistle he's got to count ten and start to shout.' 'Shout what?' 'Oh, "Help", anything.' 'You hear; Mike,' Blackie said. He was the leader again. He took a quick look between the shutters. 'He's coming, T.' 'Quick, Mike. The lav. Stay here, Blackie, all of you; till I yell.' 'Where are you going, T.?' 'Don't worry. I'll see to this. I said I would, didn't I?' Old Misery came limping off the common. He had mud on his shoes and he stopped to scrape them on the pavement's edge. He didn't want to soil his house, which stood jagged and dark between the bomb-sites, saved so narrowly, as he believed, from destruction. Even the fan-light had been left unbroken by the bomb's blast. Somewhere somebody whistled. Old Misery looked sharply round. He didn't trust whistles. A child was shouting: it seemed to come from his own garden. Then a boy ran into the road from the car-park. 'Mr Thomas,' he called, 'Mr Thomas.' 'What is it?' 'I'm terribly sorry, Mr Thomas. One of us got taken short, and we thought you wouldn't mind, and now he can't get out.' 'What do you mean, boy?' 'He's got stuck in your lav.' 'He'd no business ... Haven't I seen you before?' 'You showed me your house.' 'So I did. So I did. That doesn't give you the right to... 'Do hurry, Mr Thomas. He'll suffocate.' 'Nonsense. He can't suffocate. Wait till I put my bag in.' 'I'll carry your bag.' 'Oh no, you don't. I carry my own.' 'This way, Mr Thomas.' 'I can't get in the garden that way. I've got to go through the house.' 'But you can get in the garden this way, Mr Thomas. We often do.' 'You often do?' He followed the boy with a scandalized fascination. 'When? What right ??' 'Do you see ? ? the wall's low.' 'I'm not going to climb walls into my own garden. It's absurd.' 'This is how we do it. One foot here, one foot there, and over.' The boy's face peered down, an arm shot out, and Mr Thomas found his bag taken and deposited on the other side of the wall. 'Give me back my bag,' Mr Thomas said. From the loo a boy yelled and yelled. 'I'll call the police.' 'Your bag's all right, Mr Thomas. Look. One foot there. On your right. Now just above. To your left.' Mr Thomas climbed over his own garden wall. 'Here's your bag, Mr Thomas.' 'I'll have the wall built up,' Mr Thomas said, 'I'll not have you boys coming over here, using my loo.' He stumbled on the path, but the boy caught his elbow and supported him. 'Thank you, thank you, my boy,' he murmured automatically. Somebody shouted again through the dark. 'I'm coming, I'm coming,' Mr Thomas called. He said to the boy beside him, 'I'm not unreasonable. Been a boy myself. As long as things are done regular. I don't mind you playing round the place Saturday mornings. Sometimes I like company. Only it's got to be regular. One of you asks leave and I say Yes. Sometimes I'll say No. Won't feel like it. And you come in at the front door and out at the back. No garden walls.' 'Do get him out, Mr Thomas.' 'He won't come to any harm in my loo,' Mr Thomas said, stumbling slowly down the garden. 'Oh, my rheumatics,' h said. 'Always get 'em on Bank Holiday. I've got to be careful. There's loose stones here. Give me your hand. Do you know what my horoscope said yesterday? "Abstain from any dealings in first half of week. Danger of serious crash." That might be on this path,' Mr Thomas said. 'They speak in parables and double meanings.' He paused at the door of the loo. 'What's the matter in there?' he called. There was no reply. 'Perhaps he's fainted,' the boy said. 'Not in my loo. Here, you, come out,' Mr Thomas said, and giving a great jerk at the door he nearly fell on his back when it swung easily open. A hand first supported him and then pushed him hard. His head hit the opposite wall and he sat heavily down. His bag hit his feet. A hand whipped the key out of the lock and the door slammed. 'Let me out,' he called, and heard the key turn in the lock. 'A serious crash,' he thought, and felt dithery and confused and old. A voice spoke to him softly through the star-shaped hole in the door. 'Don't worry, Mr Thomas,' it said, 'we won't hurt you, not if you stay quiet.' Mr Thomas put his head between his hands and pondered. He had noticed that there was only one lorry in the car-park, and he felt certain that the driver would not come for it before the morning. Nobody could hear him from the road in front and the lane at the back was seldom used. Anyone who passed there would be hurrying home and would not pause for what they would certainly take to be drunken cries. And if he did call 'Help', who, on a lonely Bank Holiday evening, would have the courage to investigate? Mr Thomas sat on the loo and pondered with the wisdom of age. After a while it seemed to him that there were sounds in the silence - they were faint and came from the direction of his house. He stood up and peered through the ventilation-hole - between the cracks in one of the shutters he saw a light, not the light of a lamp, but the wavering light that a candle might give. Then he thought he heard the sound of hammering and scraping and chipping. He thought of burglars - perhaps they had employed the boy as a scout, but why should burglars engage in what sounded more and more like a stealthy form of carpentry? Mr Thomas let out an experimental yell, but nobody answered. The noise could not even have reached his enemies. Mike had gone home to bed, but the rest stayed. The question of leadership no longer concerned the gang. With nails, chisels, screwdrivers, anything that was sharp and penetrating, they moved around the inner walls worrying at the mortar between the bricks. They started too high, and it was Blackie who hit on the damp course and realized the work could be halved if they weakened the joints immediately above. It was a long, tiring, unamusing job, but at last it was finished. The gutted house stood there balanced on a few inches of mortar between the clamp course and the bricks. There remained the most dangerous task of all, out in the open at the edge of the bomb-site. Summers was sent to watch the road for passers-by, and Mr Thomas, sitting on the loo, heard clearly now the sound of sawing. It no longer came from the house, and that a little reassured him. He felt less concerned. Perhaps the other noises too had no significance. A voice spoke to him through the hole. 'Mr Thomas.' 'Let me out,' Mr Thomas said sternly. 'Here's a blanket,' the voice said, and a long grey sausage was worked through the hole and fell in swathes over Mr Thomas's head. 'There's nothing personal,' the voice said. 'We want you to be comfortable tonight.' 'Tonight,' Mr Thomas repeated incredulously. 'Catch,' the voice said. 'Penny buns - we've buttered them, and sausage-rolls. We don't want you to starve, Mr Thomas.' Mr Thomas pleaded desperately. 'A joke's a joke, boy. Let me out and I won't say a thing. I've got rheumatics. I got to sleep comfortable.' 'You wouldn't be comfortable, not in your house, you wouldn't. Not now.' 'What do you mean, boy?' But the footsteps receded. There was only the silence of night: no sound of sawing. Mr Thomas tried one more yell, but he was daunted and rebuked by the silence - a long way off an owl hooted and made away again on its muffled flight through the soundless world. At seven next morning the driver came to fetch his lorry. He climbed into the seat and tried to start the engine. He was vaguely aware of a voice shouting, but it didn't concern him. At last the engine responded and he backed the lorry until it, touched the great wooden shore that supported Mr Thomas's house. That way he could drive right out and down the street without reversing. The lorry moved forward, was momentarily checked as though something were pulling it from behind, and then went on to the sound of a long rumbling crash. The driver was astonished to see bricks bouncing ahead of him, while stones hit the roof of his cab. He put on his brakes. When he climbed out the whole landscape had suddenly altered. There was no house beside the car-park, only a hill of rubble. He went round and examined the back of his lorry for damage, and found a rope tied there that was still twisted at the other end round part of a wooden strut. The driver again became aware of somebody shouting. It came from the wooden erection which was the nearest thing to a house in that desolation of broken brick. The driver climbed the smashed wall and unlocked the door. Mr Thomas came out of the loo. He was wearing a grey blanket to which flakes of pastry adhered. He gave a sobbing cry. 'My house,' he said. 'Where's my house?' 'Search me,' the driver said. His eye lit on the remains of a bath and what had once been a dresser and he began to laugh. There wasn't anything left anywhere. 'How dare you laugh,' Mr Thomas said. 'It was my house My house.' 'I'm sorry,' the driver said, making heroic efforts, but when he remembered the sudden check of his lorry, the crash of bricks falling, he became convulsed again. One moment the house had stood there with such dignity between the bomb-sites like a man in a top hat, and then, bang, crash, there wasn't anything left - not anything. He said, 'I'm sorry. I can't help it, Mr Thomas. There's nothing personal, but you got to admit it's funny.'   Written 1954 Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) ALTHOUGH it was so brilliantly fine?the blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins Publiques?Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur. The air was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip, and now and again a leaf came drifting?from nowhere, from the sky. Miss Brill put up her hand and touched her fur. Dear little thing! It was nice to feel it again. She had taken it out of its box that afternoon, shaken out the moth powder, given it a good brush, and rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes. "What has been happening to me?" said the sad little eyes. Oh, how sweet it was to see them snap at her again from the red eiderdown! . . . But the nose, which was of some black composition, wasn't at all firm. It must have had a knock, somehow. Never mind?a little dab of black sealing-wax when the time came?when it was absolutely necessary . . . Little rogue! Yes, she really felt like that about it. Little rogue biting its tail just by her left ear. She could have taken it off and laid it on her lap and stroked it. She felt a tingling in her hands and arms, but that [Page 183]  came from walking, she supposed. And when she breathed, something light and sad?no, not sad, exactly?something gentle seemed to move in her bosom. There were a number of people out this afternoon, far more than last Sunday. And the band sounded louder and gayer. That was because the Season had begun. For although the band played all the year round on Sundays, out of season it was never the same. It was like some one playing with only the family to listen; it didn't care how it played if there weren't any strangers present. Wasn't the conductor wearing a new coat, too? She was sure it was new. He scraped with his foot and flapped his arms like a rooster about to crow, and the bandsmen sitting in the green rotunda blew out their cheeks and glared at the music. Now there came a little "flutey" bit?very pretty!?a little chain of bright drops. She was sure it would be repeated. It was; she lifted her head and smiled. Only two people shared her "special" seat: a fine old man in a velvet coat, his hands clasped over a huge carved walking-stick, and a big old woman, sitting upright, with a roll of knitting on her embroidered apron. They did not speak. This was disappointing, for Miss Brill always looked forward to the conversation. She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her. [Page 184]  She glanced, sideways, at the old couple. Perhaps they would go soon. Last Sunday, too, hadn't been as interesting as usual. An Englishman and his wife, he wearing a dreadful Panama hat and she button boots. And she'd gone on the whole time about how she ought to wear spectacles; she knew she needed them; but that it was no good getting any; they'd be sure to break and they'd never keep on. And he'd been so patient. He'd suggested everything?gold rims, the kind that curve round your ears, little pads inside the bridge. No, nothing would please her. "They'll always be sliding down my nose!" Miss Brill had wanted to shake her. The old people sat on a bench, still as statues. Never mind, there was always the crowd to watch. To and fro, in front of the flower beds and the band rotunda, the couples and groups paraded, stopped to talk, to greet, to buy a handful of flowers from the old beggar who had his tray fixed to the railings. Little children ran among them, swooping and laughing; little boys with big white silk bows under their chins, little girls, little French dolls, dressed up in velvet and lace. And sometimes a tiny staggerer came suddenly rocking into the open from under the trees, stopped, stared, as suddenly sat down "flop," until its small high-stepping mother, like a young hen, rushed scolding to its rescue. Other people sat on the benches and green chairs, but they were nearly always the same, Sunday after Sunday, [Page 185]  and?Miss Brill had often noticed?there was something funny about nearly all of them. They were odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they'd just come from dark little rooms or even?even cupboards! Behind the rotunda the slender trees with yellow leaves down drooping, and through them just a line of sea, and beyond the blue sky with gold-veined clouds. Tum-tum-tum tiddle-um! tiddle-um! tum tiddley-um tum ta! blew the band. Two young girls in red came by and two young soldiers in blue met them, and they laughed and paired and went off arm-in-arm. Two peasant women with funny straw hats passed, gravely, leading beautiful smoke-coloured donkeys. A cold, pale nun hurried by. A beautiful woman came along and dropped her bunch of violets, and a little boy ran after to hand them to her, and she took them and threw them away as if they'd been poisoned. Dear me! Miss Brill didn't know whether to admire that or not! And now an ermine toque and a gentleman in gray met just in front of her. He was tall, stiff, dignified, and she was wearing the ermine toque she'd bought when her hair was yellow. Now everything, her hair, her face, even her eyes, was the same colour as the shabby ermine, and her hand, in its cleaned glove, lifted to dab her lips, was a tiny yellowish paw. Oh, she was so pleased to see him?delighted! She rather thought they were going [Page 186]  to meet that afternoon. She described where she'd been?everywhere, here, there, along by the sea. The day was so charming?didn't he agree? And wouldn't he, perhaps? . . . But he shook his head, lighted a cigarette, slowly breathed a great deep puff into her face, and even while she was still talking and laughing, flicked the match away and walked on. The ermine toque was alone; she smiled more brightly than ever. But even the band seemed to know what she was feeling and played more softly, played tenderly, and the drum beat, "The Brute! The Brute!" over and over. What would she do? What was going to happen now? But as Miss Brill wondered, the ermine toque turned, raised her hand as though she'd seen someone else, much nicer, just over there, and pattered away. And the band changed again and played more quickly, more gayly than ever, and the old couple on Miss Brill's seat got up and marched away, and such a funny old man with long whiskers hobbled along in time to the music and was nearly knocked over by four girls walking abreast. Oh, how fascinating it was! How she enjoyed it! How she loved sitting here, watching it all! It was like a play. It was exactly like a play. Who could believe the sky at the back wasn't painted? But it wasn't till a little brown dog trotted on solemn and then slowly trotted off, like a little "theatre" dog, a little dog that had been drugged, that Miss Brill discovered what it was [Page 187]  that made it so exciting. They were all on stage. They weren't only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting. Even she had a part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there; she was part of the performance after all. How strange she'd never thought of it like that before! And yet it explained why she made such point of starting from home at just the same time each week?so as not to be late for the performance?and it also explained why she had a queer, shy feeling at telling her English pupils how she spent her Sunday afternoons. No wonder! Miss Brill nearly laughed out loud. She was on the stage. She thought of the old invalid gentleman to whom she read the newspaper four afternoons a week while he slept in the garden. She had got quite used to the frail head on the cotton pillow, the hollowed eyes, the open mouth and the high pinched nose. If he'd been dead she mightn't have noticed for weeks; she wouldn't have minded. But suddenly he knew he was having the paper read to him by an actress! "An actress!" The old head lifted; two points of light quivered in the old eyes. "An actress?are ye?" And Miss Brill smoothed the newspaper as though it were the manuscript of her part and said gently; "Yes, I have been an actress for a long time." The band had been having a rest. Now they started again. And what they played was warm, [Page 188]  sunny, yet there was just a faint chill?a something, what was it??not sadness?no, not sadness?a something that made you want to sing. The tune lifted, lifted, the light shone; and it seemed to Miss Brill that in another moment all of them, all the whole company, would begin singing. The young ones, the laughing ones who were moving together, they would begin and the men's voices, very resolute and brave, would join them. And then she too, she too, and the others on the benches?they would come in with a kind of accompaniment?something low, that scarcely rose or fell, something so beautiful?moving. . . . And Miss Brill's eyes filled with tears and she looked smiling at all the other members of the company. Yes, we understand, we understand, she thought?though what they understood she didn't know. Just at that moment a boy and girl came and sat down where the old couple had been. They were beautifully dressed; they were in love. The hero and heroine, of course, just arrived from his father's yacht. And still soundlessly singing, still with that trembling smile, Miss Brill prepared to listen. "No, not now," said the girl. "Not here, I can't." "But why? Because of that stupid old thing at the end there?" asked the boy. "Why does she come here at all?who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?" [Page 189]  "It's her fu-ur which is so funny," giggled the girl. "It's exactly like a fried whiting." "Ah, be off with you!" said the boy in an angry whisper. Then: "Tell me, ma petite chère?" "No, not here," said the girl. "Not yet." On her way home she usually bought a slice of honeycake at the baker's. It was her Sunday treat. Sometimes there was an almond in her slice, sometimes not. It made a great difference. If there was an almond it was like carrying home a tiny present?a surprise?something that might very well not have been there. She hurried on the almond Sundays and struck the match for the kettle in quite a dashing way. But to-day she passed the baker's by, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark room?her room like a cupboard?and sat down on the red eiderdown. She sat there for a long time. The box that the fur came out of was on the bed. She unclasped the necklet quickly; quickly, without looking, laid it inside. But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying. A Perfect Day for Bananafish J. D. Salinger The New Yorker, January 31, 1948, pages 21-25 THERE WERE ninety-seven New York advertising men in the hotel, and, the way they were monopolizing the long-distance lines, the girl in 507 had to wait from noon till almost two-thirty to get her call through. She used the time, though. She read an article in a women's pocket-size magazine, called "Sex Is Fun-or Hell." She washed her comb and brush. She took the spot out of the skirt of her beige suit. She moved the button on her Saks blouse. She tweezed out two freshly surfaced hairs in her mole. When the operator finally rang her room, she was sitting on the window seat and had almost finished putting lacquer on the nails of her left hand. She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty. With her little lacquer brush, while the phone was ringing, she went over the nail of her little finger, accentuating the line of the moon. She then replaced the cap on the bottle of lacquer and, standing up, passed her left--the wet--hand back and forth through the air. With her dry hand, she picked up a congested ashtray from the window seat and carried it with her over to the night table, on which the phone stood. She sat down on one of the made-up twin beds and--it was the fifth or sixth ring--picked up the phone. "Hello," she said, keeping the fingers of her left hand outstretched and away from her white silk dressing gown, which was all that she was wearing, except mules--her rings were in the bathroom. "I have your call to New York now, Mrs. Glass," the operator said. "Thank you," said the girl, and made room on the night table for the ashtray. A woman's voice came through. "Muriel? Is that you?" The girl turned the receiver slightly away from her ear. "Yes, Mother. How are you?" she said. "I've been worried to death about you. Why haven't you phoned? Are you all right?" "I tried to get you last night and the night before. The phone here's been--" "Are you all right, Muriel?" The girl increased the angle between the receiver and her ear. "I'm fine. I'm hot. This is the hottest day they've had in Florida in--" "Why haven't you called me? I've been worried to--" "Mother, darling, don't yell at me. I can hear you beautifully," said the girl. "I called you twice last night. Once just after--" "I told your father you'd probably call last night. But, no, he had to-Are you all right, Muriel? Tell me the truth." "I'm fine. Stop asking me that, please." "When did you get there?" "I don't know. Wednesday morning, early." "Who drove?" "He did," said the girl. "And don't get excited. He drove very nicely. I was amazed." "He drove? Muriel, you gave me your word of--" "Mother," the girl interrupted, "I just told you. He drove very nicely. Under fifty the whole way, as a matter of fact." "Did he try any of that funny business with the trees?" "I said he drove very nicely, Mother. Now, please. I asked him to stay close to the white line, and all, and he knew what I meant, and he did. He was even trying not to look at the trees-you could tell. Did Daddy get the car fixed, incidentally?" "Not yet. They want four hundred dollars, just to--" "Mother, Seymour told Daddy that he'd pay for it. There's no reason for--" "Well, we'll see. How did he behave--in the car and all?" "All right," said the girl. "Did he keep calling you that awful--" "No. He has something new now." "What?" "Oh, what's the difference, Mother?" "Muriel, I want to know. Your father--" "All right, all right. He calls me Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948," the girl said, and giggled. "It isn't funny, Muriel. It isn't funny at all. It's horrible. It's sad, actually. When I think how--" "Mother," the girl interrupted, "listen to me. You remember that book he sent me from Germany? You know--those German poems. What'd I do with it? I've been racking my--" "You have it." "Are you sure?" said the girl. "Certainly. That is, I have it. It's in Freddy's room. You left it here and I didn't have room for it in the--Why? Does he want it?" "No. Only, he asked me about it, when we were driving down. He wanted to know if I'd read it." "It was in German!" "Yes, dear. That doesn't make any difference," said the girl, crossing her legs. "He said that the poems happen to be written by the only great poet of the century. He said I should've bought a translation or something. Or learned the language, if you please." "Awful. Awful. It's sad, actually, is what it is. Your father said last night--" "Just a second, Mother," the girl said. She went over to the window seat for her cigarettes, lit one, and returned to her seat on the bed. "Mother?" she said, exhaling smoke. "Muriel. Now, listen to me."    "I'm listening." "Your father talked to Dr. Sivetski." "Oh?" said the girl. "He told him everything. At least, he said he did--you know your father. The trees. That business with the window. Those horrible things he said to Granny about her plans for passing away. What he did with all those lovely pictures from Bermuda--everything." "Well?" said the girl. "Well. In the first place, he said it was a perfect crime the Army released him from the hospital--my word of honor. He very definitely told your father there's a chance--a very great chance, he said--that Seymour may completely lose control of himself. My word of honor." "There's a psychiatrist here at the hotel," said the girl. "Who? What's his name?" "I don't know. Rieser or something. He's supposed to be very good." "Never heard of him." "Well, he's supposed to be very good, anyway." "Muriel, don't be fresh, please. We're very worried about you. Your father wanted to wire you last night to come home, as a matter of f--" "I'm not coming home right now, Mother. So relax." "Muriel. My word of honor. Dr. Sivetski said Seymour may completely lose contr--" "I just got here, Mother. This is the first vacation I've had in years, and I'm not going to just pack everything and come home," said the girl. "I couldn't travel now anyway. I'm so sunburned I can hardly move." "You're badly sunburned? Didn't you use that jar of Bronze I put in your bag? I put it right--" "I used it. I'm burned anyway." "That's terrible. Where are you burned?" "All over, dear, all over." "That's terrible." "I'll live." "Tell me, did you talk to this psychiatrist?" "Well, sort of," said the girl. "What'd he say? Where was Seymour when you talked to him?" "In the Ocean Room, playing the piano. He's played the piano both nights we've been here." "Well, what'd he say?" "Oh, nothing much. He spoke to me first. I was sitting next to him at Bingo last night, and he asked me if that wasn't my husband playing the piano in the other room. I said yes, it was, and he asked me if Seymour's been sick or something. So I said--" "Why'd he ask that?" "I don't know, Mother. I guess because he's so pale and all," said the girl. "Anyway, after Bingo he and his wife asked me if I wouldn't like to join them for a drink. So I did. His wife was horrible. You remember that awful dinner dress we saw in Bonwit's window? The one you said you'd have to have a tiny, tiny--" "The green?" "She had it on. And all hips. She kept asking me if Seymour's related to that Suzanne Glass that has that place on Madison Avenue--the millinery." "What'd he say, though? The doctor." "Oh. Well, nothing much, really. I mean we were in the bar and all. It was terribly noisy." "Yes, but did--did you tell him what he tried to do with Granny's chair?" "No, Mother. I didn't go into details very much," said the girl. "I'll probably get a chance to talk to him again. He's in the bar all day long." "Did he say he thought there was a chance he might get--you know--funny or anything? Do something to you!" "Not exactly," said the girl. "He had to have more facts, Mother. They have to know about your childhood--all that stuff. I told you, we could hardly talk, it was so noisy in there." "Well. How's your blue coat?" "All right. I had some of the padding taken out." "How are the clothes this year?" "Terrible. But out of this world. You see sequins--everything," said the girl. "How's your room?" "All right. Just all right, though. We couldn't get the room we had before the war," said the girl. "The people are awful this year. You should see what sits next to us in the dining room. At the next table. They look as if they drove down in a truck." "Well, it's that way all over. How's your ballerina?" "It's too long. I told you it was too long." "Muriel, I'm only going to ask you once more--are you really all right?" "Yes, Mother," said the girl. "For the ninetieth time." "And you don't want to come home?" "No, Mother." "Your father said last night that he'd be more than willing to pay for it if you'd go away someplace by yourself and think things over. You could take a lovely cruise. We both thought--" "No, thanks," said the girl, and uncrossed her legs. "Mother, this call is costing a for--" "When I think of how you waited for that boy all through the war-I mean when you think of all those crazy little wives who--" "Mother," said the girl, "we'd better hang up. Seymour may come in any minute." "Where is he?" "On the beach." "On the beach? By himself? Does he behave himself on the beach?" "Mother," said the girl, "you talk about him as though he were a raving maniac--" "I said nothing of the kind, Muriel." "Well, you sound that way. I mean all he does is lie there. He won't take his bathrobe off." "He won't take his bathrobe off? Why not?" "I don't know. I guess because he's so pale." "My goodness, he needs the sun. Can't you make him? "You know Seymour," said the girl, and crossed her legs again. "He says he doesn't want a lot of fools looking at his tattoo." "He doesn't have any tattoo! Did he get one in the Army?" "No, Mother. No, dear," said the girl, and stood up. "Listen, I'll call you tomorrow, maybe." "Muriel. Now, listen to me." "Yes, Mother," said the girl, putting her weight on her right leg. "Call me the instant he does, or says, anything at all funny--you know what I mean. Do you hear me?" "Mother, I'm not afraid of Seymour." "Muriel, I want you to promise me." "All right, I promise. Goodbye, Mother," said the girl. "My love to Daddy." She hung up. "See more glass," said Sybil Carpenter, who was staying at the hotel with her mother. "Did you see more glass?" "Pussycat, stop saying that. It's driving Mommy absolutely crazy. Hold still, please." Mrs. Carpenter was putting sun-tan oil on Sybil's shoulders, spreading it down over the delicate, winglike blades of her back. Sybil was sitting insecurely on a huge, inflated beach ball, facing the ocean. She was wearing a canary-yellow two-piece bathing suit, one piece of which she would not actually be needing for another nine or ten years. "It was really just an ordinary silk handkerchief--you could see when you got up close," said the woman in the beach chair beside Mrs. Carpenter's. "I wish I knew how she tied it. It was really darling." "It sounds darling," Mrs. Carpenter agreed. "Sybil, hold still, pussy." "Did you see more glass?" said Sybil. Mrs. Carpenter sighed. "All right," she said. She replaced the cap on the sun-tan oil bottle. "Now run and play, pussy. Mommy's going up to the hotel and have a Martini with Mrs. Hubbel. I'll bring you the olive." Set loose, Sybil immediately ran down to the flat part of the beach and began to walk in the direction of Fisherman's Pavilion. Stopping only to sink a foot in a soggy, collapsed castle, she was soon out of the area reserved for guests of the hotel. She walked for about a quarter of a mile and then suddenly broke into an oblique run up the soft part of the beach. She stopped short when she reached the place where a young man was lying on his back. "Are you going in the water, see more glass?" she said. The young man started, his right hand going to the lapels of his terry-cloth robe. He turned over on his stomach, letting a sausaged towel fall away from his eyes, and squinted up at Sybil. "Hey. Hello, Sybil." "Are you going in the water?" "I was waiting for you," said the young man. "What's new?" "What?" said Sybil. "What's new? What's on the program?" "My daddy's coming tomorrow on a nairiplane," Sybil said, kicking sand. "Not in my face, baby," the young man said, putting his hand on Sybil's ankle. "Well, it's about time he got here, your daddy. I've been expecting him hourly. Hourly." "Where's the lady?" Sybil said. "The lady?" the young man brushed some sand out of his thin hair. "That's hard to say, Sybil. She may be in any one of a thousand places. At the hairdresser's. Having her hair dyed mink. Or making dolls for poor children, in her room." Lying prone now, he made two fists, set one on top of the other, and rested his chin on the top one. "Ask me something else, Sybil," he said. "That's a fine bathing suit you have on. If there's one thing I like, it's a blue bathing suit." Sybil stared at him, then looked down at her protruding stomach. "This is a yellow," she said. "This is a yellow." "It is? Come a little closer." Sybil took a step forward. "You're absolutely right. What a fool I am." "Are you going in the water?" Sybil said. "I'm seriously considering it. I'm giving it plenty of thought, Sybil, you'll be glad to know." Sybil prodded the rubber float that the young man sometimes used as a head-rest. "It needs air," she said. "You're right. It needs more air than I'm willing to admit." He took away his fists and let his chin rest on the sand. "Sybil," he said, "you're looking fine. It's good to see you. Tell me about yourself." He reached in front of him and took both of Sybil's ankles in his hands. "I'm Capricorn," he said. "What are you?" "Sharon Lipschutz said you let her sit on the piano seat with you," Sybil said. "Sharon Lipschutz said that?" Sybil nodded vigorously. He let go of her ankles, drew in his hands, and laid the side of his face on his right forearm. "Well," he said, "you know how those things happen, Sybil. I was sitting there, playing. And you were nowhere in sight. And Sharon Lipschutz came over and sat down next to me. I couldn't push her off, could I?" "Yes." "Oh, no. No. I couldn't do that," said the young man. "I'll tell you what I did do, though." "What?" "I pretended she was you." Sybil immediately stooped and began to dig in the sand. "Let's go in the water," she said. "All right," said the young man. "I think I can work it in." "Next time, push her off," Sybil said. "Push who off?" "Sharon Lipschutz." "Ah, Sharon Lipschutz," said the young man. "How that name comes up. Mixing memory and desire." He suddenly got to his feet. He looked at the ocean. "Sybil," he said, "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll see if we can catch a bananafish." "A what?" "A bananafish," he said, and undid the belt of his robe. He took off the robe. His shoulders were white and narrow, and his trunks were royal blue. He folded the robe, first lengthwise, then in thirds. He unrolled the towel he had used over his eyes, spread it out on the sand, and then laid the folded robe on top of it. He bent over, picked up the float, and secured it under his right arm. Then, with his left hand, he took Sybil's hand. The two started to walk down to the ocean. "I imagine you've seen quite a few bananafish in your day," the young man said. Sybil shook her head. "You haven't? Where do you live, anyway?" "I don't know," said Sybil. "Sure you know. You must know. Sharon Lipschutz knows where she lives and she's only three and a half." Sybil stopped walking and yanked her hand away from him. She picked up an ordinary beach shell and looked at it with elaborate interest. She threw it down. "Whirly Wood, Connecticut," she said, and resumed walking, stomach foremost. "Whirly Wood, Connecticut," said the young man. "Is that anywhere near Whirly Wood, Connecticut, by any chance?" Sybil looked at him. "That's where I live," she said impatiently. "I live in Whirly Wood, Connecticut." She ran a few steps ahead of him, caught up her left foot in her left hand, and hopped two or three times. "You have no idea how clear that makes everything," the young man said. Sybil released her foot. "Did you read `Little Black Sambo'?" she said. "It's very funny you ask me that," he said. "It so happens I just finished reading it last night." He reached down and took back Sybil's hand. "What did you think of it?" he asked her. "Did the tigers run all around that tree?" "I thought they'd never stop. I never saw so many tigers." "There were only six," Sybil said. "Only six!" said the young man. "Do you call that only?" "Do you like wax?" Sybil asked. "Do I like what?" asked the young man. "Wax." "Very much. Don't you?" Sybil nodded. "Do you like olives?" she asked. "Olives--yes. Olives and wax. I never go anyplace without 'em." "Do you like Sharon Lipschutz?" Sybil asked. "Yes. Yes, I do," said the young man. "What I like particularly about her is that she never does anything mean to little dogs in the lobby of the hotel. That little toy bull that belongs to that lady from Canada, for instance. You probably won't believe this, but some little girls like to poke that little dog with balloon sticks. Sharon doesn't. She's never mean or unkind. That's why I like her so much." Sybil was silent. "I like to chew candles," she said finally. "Who doesn't?" said the young man, getting his feet wet. "Wow! It's cold." He dropped the rubber float on its back. "No, wait just a second, Sybil. Wait'll we get out a little bit." They waded out till the water was up to Sybil's waist. Then the young man picked her up and laid her down on her stomach on the float. "Don't you ever wear a bathing cap or anything?" he asked. "Don't let go," Sybil ordered. "You hold me, now." "Miss Carpenter. Please. I know my business," the young man said. "You just keep your eyes open for any bananafish. This is a perfect day for bananafish." "I don't see any," Sybil said. "That's understandable. Their habits are very peculiar." He kept pushing the float. The water was not quite up to his chest. "They lead a very tragic life," he said. "You know what they do, Sybil?" She shook her head. "Well, they swim into a hole where there's a lot of bananas. They're very ordinary-looking fish when they swim in. But once they get in, they behave like pigs. Why, I've known some bananafish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas." He edged the float and its passenger a foot closer to the horizon. "Naturally, after that they're so fat they can't get out of the hole again. Can't fit through the door." "Not too far out," Sybil said. "What happens to them?" "What happens to who?" "The bananafish." "Oh, you mean after they eat so many bananas they can't get out of the banana hole?" "Yes," said Sybil. "Well, I hate to tell you, Sybil. They die." "Why?" asked Sybil. "Well, they get banana fever. It's a terrible disease." "Here comes a wave," Sybil said nervously. "We'll ignore it. We'll snub it," said the young man. "Two snobs." He took Sybil's ankles in his hands and pressed down and forward. The float nosed over the top of the wave. The water soaked Sybil's blond hair, but her scream was full of pleasure. With her hand, when the float was level again, she wiped away a flat, wet band of hair from her eyes, and reported, "I just saw one." "Saw what, my love?" "A bananafish." "My God, no!" said the young man. "Did he have any bananas in his mouth?" "Yes," said Sybil. "Six." The young man suddenly picked up one of Sybil's wet feet, which were drooping over the end of the float, and kissed the arch. "Hey!" said the owner of the foot, turning around. "Hey, yourself We're going in now. You had enough?" "No!" "Sorry," he said, and pushed the float toward shore until Sybil got off it. He carried it the rest of the way. "Goodbye," said Sybil, and ran without regret in the direction of the hotel. The young man put on his robe, closed the lapels tight, and jammed his towel into his pocket. He picked up the slimy wet, cumbersome float and put it under his arm. He plodded alone through the soft, hot sand toward the hotel. On the sub-main floor of the hotel, which the management directed bathers to use, a woman with zinc salve on her nose got into the elevator with the young man. "I see you're looking at my feet," he said to her when the car was in motion. "I beg your pardon?" said the woman. "I said I see you're looking at my feet." "I beg your pardon. I happened to be looking at the floor," said the woman, and faced the doors of the car. "If you want to look at my feet, say so," said the young man. "But don't be a God-damned sneak about it." "Let me out here, please," the woman said quickly to the girl operating the car. The car doors opened and the woman got out without looking back. "I have two normal feet and I can't see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at them," said the young man. "Five, please." He took his room key out of his robe pocket. He got off at the fifth floor, walked down the hall, and let himself into 507. The room smelled of new calfskin luggage and nail-lacquer remover. He glanced at the girl lying asleep on one of the twin beds. Then he went over to one of the pieces of luggage, opened it, and from under a pile of shorts and undershirts he took out an Ortgies calibre 7.65 automatic. He released the magazine, looked at it, then reinserted it. He cocked the piece. Then he went over and sat down on the unoccupied twin bed, looked at the girl, aimed the pistol, and fired a bullet through his right temple.   Once upon a Time Nadine Gordimer Someone has written to ask me to contribute to an anthology of stories for children. I reply that I don't write children's stories; and he writes back that at a recent congress/book fair/seminar a certain novelist said every writer ought to write at least one story for children. I think of sending a postcard saying I don't accept that I "ought" to write anything. And then last night I woke up?or rather was awakened without knowing what had roused me. A voice in the echo-chamber of the subconscious? A sound. A creaking of the kind made by the weight carried by one foot after another along a wooden floor. I listened. I felt the apertures of my ears distend with concentration. Again: the creaking. I was waiting for it; waiting to hear if it indicated that feet were moving from room to room, coming up the passage?to my door. I have no burglar bars, no gun under the pillow, but I have the same fears as people who do take these precautions, and my windowpanes are thin as rime, could shatter like a wineglass. A woman was murdered (how do they put it) in broad daylight in a house two blocks away, last year, and the fierce dogs who guarded an old widower and his collection of antique clocks were strangled before he was knifed by a casual laborer he had dismissed without pay. I was staring at the door, making it out in my mind rather than seeing it, in the dark. I lay quite still?a victim already?the arrhythmia of my heart was fleeing, knocking this way and that against its body-cage. How finely tuned the senses are, just out of rest, sleep! I could never listen intently as that in the distractions of the day, I was reading every faintest sound, identifying and classifying its possible threat. But I learned that I was to be neither threatened nor spared. There was no human weight pressing on the boards, the creaking was a buckling, an epicenter of stress. I was in it. The house that surrounds me while I sleep is built on undermined ground; far beneath my bed, the floor, the house's foundations, the stopes and passages of gold mines have hollowed the rock, and when some face trembles, detaches and falls, three thousand feet below, the whole house shifts slightly, bringing uneasy strain to the balance and counterbalance of brick, cement, wood and glass that hold it as a structure around me. The misbeats of my heart tailed off like the last muffled flourishes on one of the wooden xylophones made by the Chopi and Tsonga1 migrant miners who might have been down there, under me in the earth at that moment. The stope where the fall was could have been disused, dripping water from its ruptured veins; or men might now be interred there in the most profound of tombs. I couldn't find a position in which my mind would let go of my body?release me to sleep again. So I began to tell myself a story, a bedtime story. In a house, in a suburb, in a city, there were a man and his wife who loved each other very much and were living happily ever after. They had a little boy, and they loved him very much. They had a cat and a dog that the little boy loved very much. They had a car and a caravan trailer for holidays, and a swimming-pool which was fenced so that the little boy and his playmates would not fall in and drown. They had a housemaid who was absolutely trustworthy and an itinerant gardener who was highly recommended by the neighbors. For when they began to live happily ever after they were warned, by that wise old witch, the husband's mother, not to take on anyone off the street. They were inscribed in a medical benefit society, their pet dog was licensed, they were insured against fire, flood damage and theft, and subscribed to the local Neighborhood Watch, which supplied them with a plaque for their gates lettered YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED over the silhouette of a would-be intruder. He was masked; it could not be said if he was black or white, and therefore proved the property owner was no racist. It was not possible to insure the house, the swimming pool or the car against riot damage. There were riots, but these were outside the city, where people of another color were quartered. These people were not allowed into the suburb except as reliable housemaids and gardeners, so there was nothing to fear, the husband told the wife. Yet she was afraid that some day such people might come up the street and tear off the plaque YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED and open the gates and stream in... Nonsense, my dear, said the husband, there are police and soldiers and tear-gas and guns to keep them away. But to please her?for he loved her very much and buses were being burned, cars stoned, and schoolchildren shot by the police in those quarters out of sight and hearing of the suburb?he had electronically controlled gates fitted. Anyone who pulled off the sign YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED and tried to open the gates would have to announce his intentions by pressing a button and speaking into a receiver relayed to the house. The little boy was fascinated by the device and used it as a walkie-talkie in cops and robbers play with his small friends. 1 Chopi and Tsonga: two peoples from Mozambique, northeast of South Africa The riots were suppressed, but there were many burglaries in the suburb and somebody's trusted housemaid was tied up and shut in a cupboard by thieves while she was in charge of her employers' house. The trusted housemaid of the man and wife and little boy was so upset by this misfortune befalling a friend left, as she herself often was, with responsibility for the possessions of the man and his wife and the little boy that she implored her employers to have burglar bars attached to the doors and windows of the house, and an alarm system installed. The wife said, She is right, let us take heed of her advice. So from every window and door in the house where they were living happily ever after they now saw the trees and sky through bars, and when the little boy's pet cat tried to climb in by the fanlight to keep him company in his little bed at night, as it customarily had done, it set off the alarm keening through the house. The alarm was often answered?it seemed?by other burglar alarms, in other houses, that had been triggered by pet cats or nibbling mice. The alarms called to one another across the gardens in shrills and bleats and wails that everyone soon became accustomed to, so that the din roused the inhabitants of the suburb no more than the croak of frogs and musical grating of cicadas' legs. Under cover of the electronic harpies' discourse intruders sawed the iron bars and broke into homes, taking away hi-fi equipment, television sets, cassette players, cameras and radios, jewelry and clothing, and sometimes were hungry enough to devour everything in the refrigerator or paused audaciously to drink the whiskey in the cabinets or patio bars. Insurance companies paid no compensation for single malt2, a loss made keener by the property owner's knowledge that the thieves wouldn't even have been able to appreciate what it was they were drinking. Then the time came when many of the people who were not trusted housemaids and gardeners hung about the suburb because they were unemployed. Some importuned for a job: weeding or painting a roof; anything, baas3, madam. But the man and his wife remembered the warning about taking on anyone off the street. Some drank liquor and fouled the street with discarded bottles. Some begged, waiting for the man or his wife to drive the car out of the electronically operated gates. They sat about with their feet in the gutters, under the jacaranda trees that made a green tunnel of the street?for it was a beautiful suburb, spoilt only by their presence?and sometimes they fell asleep lying right before the gates in the midday sun. The wife could never see anyone go hungry. She sent the trusted housemaid out with bread and tea, but the trusted housemaid said these were loafers and tsotsis4, who would come and tie her and shut her in a cupboard. The husband said, She's right. Take heed of her advice. You only encourage them with your bread and tea. They are looking for their chance . .. And he brought the little boy's tricycle from the garden into the house every night, because if the house was surely secure, once locked and with the alarm set, someone might still be able to climb over the wall or the electronically closed gates into the garden. You are right, said the wife, then the wall should be higher. And the wise old witch, the husband's mother, paid for the extra bricks as her Christmas present to her son and his wife?the little boy got a Space Man outfit and a book of fairy tales. But every week there were more reports of intrusion: in broad daylight and the dead of night, in the early hours of the morning, and even in the lovely summer twilight?a certain family was at dinner while the bedrooms were being ransacked upstairs. The man and his wife, talking of the latest armed robbery in the suburb, were distracted by the sight of the little boy's pet cat effortlessly arriving over the seven-foot wall, descending first with a rapid bracing of extended forepaws down on the sheer vertical surface, and then a graceful launch, landing with swishing tail within the property. The whitewashed wall was marked with the cat's comings and goings; and on the street side of the wall there were larger red-earth smudges that could have been made by the kind of broken running shoes, seen on the feet of unemployed loiterers, that had no innocent destination. When the man and wife and little boy took the pet dog for its walk round the neighborhood streets they no longer paused to admire this show of roses or that perfect lawn; these were hidden behind an array of different varieties of security fences, walls and devices. The man, wife, little boy and dog passed a remarkable choice: there was the low-cost option of pieces of broken glass embedded in cement along the top of walls, there were iron grilles ending in lance-points, there were attempts at reconciling the aesthetics of prison architecture with the Spanish Villa style (spikes painted pink) and with the plaster urns of neoclassical facades (twelve-inch pikes finned like zigzags of lightning and painted pure white). Some walls had a small board affixed, giving the name and telephone number of the firm responsible for the installation of the devices. While the little boy and the pet dog raced ahead, the husband and wife found themselves comparing the possible effectiveness of each style against its appearance; and after several weeks when they paused before this barricade or that without needing to speak, both came out with the conclusion that only one was worth considering. It was the ugliest but the most honest in its suggestion of the pure concentration-camp style, no frills, all evident efficacy. Placed the length of walls, it consisted of a continuous coil of stiff and shining metal serrated into jagged blades, so that there would be no way of climbing over it and no way through its tunnel without getting entangled in its fangs. There would be no way out, only a struggle getting bloodier and bloodier, a deeper and sharper hooking and tearing of flesh. The wife shuddered to look at it. You're right, said the husband, anyone would think twice... And they took heed of the advice on a small board fixed to the wall: Consult DRAGON'S TEETH The People For Total Security. Next day a gang of workmen came and stretched the razor-bladed coils all round the walls of the house where the husband and wife and little boy and pet dog and cat were living happily ever after. The sunlight flashed and slashed, off the serrations, the cornice of razor thorns encircled the home, shining. The husband said, Never mind. It will weather. The wife said, You're wrong. They guarantee it's rust-proof. And she waited until the little boy had run off to play before she said, I hope the cat will take heed . . . The husband said, Don't worry, my dear, cats always look before they leap. And it was true that from that day on the cat slept in the little boy's bed and kept to the garden, never risking a try at breaching security. One evening, the mother read the little boy to sleep with a fairy story from the book the wise old witch had given him at Christmas. Next day he pretended to be the Prince who braves the terrible thicket of thorns to enter the palace and kiss the Sleeping Beauty back to life: he dragged a ladder to the wall, the shining coiled tunnel was just wide enough for his little body to creep in, and with the first fixing of its razor-teeth in his knees and hands and head he screamed and struggled deeper into its tangle. The trusted housemaid and the itinerant gardener, whose "day" it was, came running, the first to see and to scream with him, and the itinerant gardener tore his hands trying to get at the little boy. Then the man and his wife burst wildly into the garden and for some reason (the cat, probably) the alarm set up wailing against the screams while the bleeding mass of the little boy was hacked out of the security coil with saws, wire-cutters, choppers, and they carried it?the man, the wife, the hysterical trusted housemaid and the weeping gardener?into the house. ONCE UPON A TIME First published in 1989. Nadine Gordimer was born in 1923 in a small town near Johannesburg, South Africa, and graduated from the University of Witwatersrand. She has taught at several American universities, but continues to reside in her native country. A prolific writer, Gordimer has published more than twenty books of fiction (novels and short story collections). In addition to England's prestigious Booker Prize for Fiction, she received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1991. __________________________________________________ 1 Chopi and Tsonga: two peoples from Mozambique, northeast of South Africa 2 Single malt: an expensive Scotch whiskey 3 baas: boss 4 tsotsis: hooligans ?Once upon a Time? QUESTIONS The opening section of the story is told by a writer awakened by a frightening sound in the night. What two causes for the sound does she consider? Ultimately, which is the more significant cause for fear? How do these together create an emotional background for the "children's story" she tells? What stylistic devices create the atmosphere of children's stories? How is this atmosphere related to the story's theme? To what extent does the story explore the motives for the behavior of the wife and husband, the husband's mother, the servants, and the people who surround the suburb and the house? What motives can you infer for these people? What ironies do they display in their actions? Can you fix the blame for the calamity that befalls the child? What are the possible meanings of the repeated phrase "YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED"? What details in the introductory section and in the children's story imply the nature of the social order in which both occur? Analyze the story's final paragraph in detail. How does it help to elucidate the theme? EvelineJames Joyce SHE sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired.Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; she heard his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement and afterwards crunching on the cinder path before the new red houses. One time there used to be a field there in which they used to play every evening with other people's children. Then a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it -- not like their little brown houses but bright brick houses with shining roofs. The children of the avenue used to play together in that field -- the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters. Ernest, however, never played: he was too grown up. Her father used often to hunt them in out of the field with his blackthorn stick; but usually little Keogh used to keep nix and call out when he saw her father coming. Still they seemed to have been rather happy then. Her father was not so bad then; and besides, her mother was alive. That was a long time ago; she and her brothers and sisters were all grown up her mother was dead. Tizzie Dunn was dead, too, and the Waters had gone back to England. Everything changes. Now she was going to go away like the others, to leave her home.Home! She looked round the room, reviewing all its familiar objects which she had dusted once a week for so many years, wondering where on earth all the dust came from. Perhaps she would never see again those familiar objects from which she had never dreamed of being divided. And yet during all those years she had never found out the name of the priest whose yellowing photograph hung on the wall above the broken harmonium beside the coloured print of the promises made to Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque. He had been a school friend of her father. Whenever he showed the photograph to a visitor her father used to pass it with a casual word:"He is in Melbourne now."She had consented to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise? She tried to weigh each side of the question. In her home anyway she had shelter and food; she had those whom she had known all her life about her. O course she had to work hard, both in the house and at business. What would they say of her in the Stores when they found out that she had run away with a fellow? Say she was a fool, perhaps; and her place would be filled up by advertisement. Miss Gavan would be glad. She had always had an edge on her, especially whenever there were people listening."Miss Hill, don't you see these ladies are waiting?""Look lively, Miss Hill, please."She would not cry many tears at leaving the Stores.But in her new home, in a distant unknown country, it would not be like that. Then she would be married -- she, Eveline. People would treat her with respect then. She would not be treated as her mother had been. Even now, though she was over nineteen, she sometimes felt herself in danger of her father's violence. She knew it was that that had given her the palpitations. When they were growing up he had never gone for her like he used to go for Harry and Ernest, because she was a girl but latterly he had begun to threaten her and say what he would do to her only for her dead mother's sake. And no she had nobody to protect her. Ernest was dead and Harry, who was in the church decorating business, was nearly always down somewhere in the country. Besides, the invariable squabble for money on Saturday nights had begun to weary her unspeakably. She always gave her entire wages -- seven shillings -- and Harry always sent up what he could but the trouble was to get any money from her father. He said she used to squander the money, that she had no head, that he wasn't going to give her his hard-earned money to throw about the streets, and much more, for he was usually fairly bad on Saturday night. In the end he would give her the money and ask her had she any intention of buying Sunday's dinner. Then she had to rush out as quickly as she could and do her marketing, holding her black leather purse tightly in her hand as she elbowed her way through the crowds and returning home late under her load of provisions. She had hard work to keep the house together and to see that the two young children who had been left to hr charge went to school regularly and got their meals regularly. It was hard work -- a hard life -- but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life.She was about to explore another life with Frank. Frank was very kind, manly, open-hearted. She was to go away with him by the night-boat to be his wife and to live with him in Buenos Ayres where he had a home waiting for her. How well she remembered the first time she had seen him; he was lodging in a house on the main road where she used to visit. It seemed a few weeks ago. He was standing at the gate, his peaked cap pushed back on his head and his hair tumbled forward over a face of bronze. Then they had come to know each other. He used to meet her outside the Stores every evening and see her home. He took her to see The Bohemian Girl and she felt elated as she sat in an unaccustomed part of the theatre with him. He was awfully fond of music and sang a little. People knew that they were courting and, when he sang about the lass that loves a sailor, she always felt pleasantly confused. He used to call her Poppens out of fun. First of all it had been an excitement for her to have a fellow and then she had begun to like him. He had tales of distant countries. He had started as a deck boy at a pound a month on a ship of the Allan Line going out to Canada. He told her the names of the ships he had been on and the names of the different services. He had sailed through the Straits of Magellan and he told her stories of the terrible Patagonians. He had fallen on his feet in Buenos Ayres, he said, and had come over to the old country just for a holiday. Of course, her father had found out the affair and had forbidden her to have anything to say to him."I know these sailor chaps," he said.One day he had quarrelled with Frank and after that she had to meet her lover secretly.The evening deepened in the avenue. The white of two letters in her lap grew indistinct. One was to Harry; the other was to her father. Ernest had been her favourite but she liked Harry too. Her father was becoming old lately, she noticed; he would miss her. Sometimes he could be very nice. Not long before, when she had been laid up for a day, he had read her out a ghost story and made toast for her at the fire. Another day, when their mother was alive, they had all gone for a picnic to the Hill of Howth. She remembered her father putting on her mothers bonnet to make the children laugh.Her time was running out but she continued to sit by the window, leaning her head against the window curtain, inhaling the odour of dusty cretonne. Down far in the avenue she could hear a street organ playing. She knew the air Strange that it should come that very night to remind her of the promise to her mother, her promise to keep the home together as long as she could. She remembered the last night of her mother's illness; she was again in the close dark room at the other side of the hall and outside she heard a melancholy air of Italy. The organ-player had been ordered to go away and given sixpence. She remembered her father strutting back into the sickroom saying:"Damned Italians! coming over here!"As she mused the pitiful vision of her mother's life laid its spell on the very quick of her being -- that life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness. She trembled as she heard again her mother's voice saying constantly with foolish insistence:"Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!"She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her. He would give her life, perhaps love, too. But she wanted to live. Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness. Frank would take her in his arms, fold her in his arms. He would save her.She stood among the swaying crowd in the station at the North Wall. He held her hand and she knew that he was speaking to her, saying something about the passage over and over again. The station was full of soldiers with brown baggages. Through the wide doors of the sheds she caught a glimpse of the black mass of the boat, lying in beside the quay wall, with illumined portholes. She answered nothing. She felt her cheek pale and cold and, out of a maze of distress, she prayed to God to direct her, to show her what was her duty. The boat blew a long mournful whistle into the mist. If she went, tomorrow she would be on the sea with Frank, steaming towards Buenos Ayres. Their passage had been booked. Could she still draw back after all he had done for her? Her distress awoke a nausea in her body and she kept moving her lips in silent fervent prayer.A bell clanged upon her heart. She felt him seize her hand:"Come!"All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her. She gripped with both hands at the iron railing."Come!"No! No! No! It was impossible. Her hands clutched the iron in frenzy. Amid the seas she sent a cry of anguish."Eveline! Evvy!"He rushed beyond the barrier and called to her to follow. He was shouted at to go on but he still called to her. She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition. A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner I WHEN Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years. It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson. Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor--he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily's father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it. When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction. On the first of the year they mailed her a tax notice. February came, and there was no reply. They wrote her a formal letter, asking her to call at the sheriff's office at her convenience. A week later the mayor wrote her himself, offering to call or to send his car for her, and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no longer went out at all. The tax notice was also enclosed, without comment. They called a special meeting of the Board of Aldermen. A deputation waited upon her, knocked at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier. They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow. It smelled of dust and disuse--a close, dank smell. The Negro led them into the parlor. It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture. When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray. On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily's father. They rose when she entered--a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand. She did not ask them to sit. She just stood in the door and listened quietly until the spokesman came to a stumbling halt. Then they could hear the invisible watch ticking at the end of the gold chain. Her voice was dry and cold. "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves." "But we have. We are the city authorities, Miss Emily. Didn't you get a notice from the sheriff, signed by him?" "I received a paper, yes," Miss Emily said. "Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff . . . I have no taxes in Jefferson." "But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see We must go by the--" "See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson." "But, Miss Emily--" "See Colonel Sartoris." (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.) "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!" The Negro appeared. "Show these gentlemen out." II So SHE vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell. That was two years after her father's death and a short time after her sweetheart--the one we believed would marry her --had deserted her. After her father's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all. A few of the ladies had the temerity to call, but were not received, and the only sign of life about the place was the Negro man--a young man then--going in and out with a market basket. "Just as if a man--any man--could keep a kitchen properly, "the ladies said; so they were not surprised when the smell developed. It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons. A neighbor, a woman, complained to the mayor, Judge Stevens, eighty years old. "But what will you have me do about it, madam?" he said. "Why, send her word to stop it," the woman said. "Isn't there a law? " "I'm sure that won't be necessary," Judge Stevens said. "It's probably just a snake or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard. I'll speak to him about it." The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who came in diffident deprecation. "We really must do something about it, Judge. I'd be the last one in the world to bother Miss Emily, but we've got to do something." That night the Board of Aldermen met--three graybeards and one younger man, a member of the rising generation. "It's simple enough," he said. "Send her word to have her place cleaned up. Give her a certain time to do it in, and if she don't. .." "Dammit, sir," Judge Stevens said, "will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?" So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily's lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork and at the cellar openings while one of them performed a regular sowing motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder. They broke open the cellar door and sprinkled lime there, and in all the outbuildings. As they recrossed the lawn, a window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol. They crept quietly across the lawn and into the shadow of the locusts that lined the street. After a week or two the smell went away. That was when people had begun to feel really sorry for her. People in our town, remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last, believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were. None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized. When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less. The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly. We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will. III SHE WAS SICK for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows--sort of tragic and serene. The town had just let the contracts for paving the sidewalks, and in the summer after her father's death they began the work. The construction company came with riggers and mules and machinery, and a foreman named Homer Barron, a Yankee--a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face. The little boys would follow in groups to hear him cuss the riggers, and the riggers singing in time to the rise and fall of picks. Pretty soon he knew everybody in town. Whenever you heard a lot of laughing anywhere about the square, Homer Barron would be in the center of the group. Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable. At first we were glad that Miss Emily would have an interest, because the ladies all said, "Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer." But there were still others, older people, who said that even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige- without calling it noblesse oblige. They just said, "Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her." She had some kin in Alabama; but years ago her father had fallen out with them over the estate of old lady Wyatt, the crazy woman, and there was no communication between the two families. They had not even been represented at the funeral. And as soon as the old people said, "Poor Emily," the whispering began. "Do you suppose it's really so?" they said to one another. "Of course it is. What else could . . ." This behind their hands; rustling of craned silk and satin behind jalousies closed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon as the thin, swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed: "Poor Emily." She carried her head high enough--even when we believed that she was fallen. It was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson; as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness. Like when she bought the rat poison, the arsenic. That was over a year after they had begun to say "Poor Emily," and while the two female cousins were visiting her. "I want some poison," she said to the druggist. She was over thirty then, still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eye sockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper's face ought to look. "I want some poison," she said. "Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I'd recom--" "I want the best you have. I don't care what kind." The druggist named several. "They'll kill anything up to an elephant. But what you want is--" "Arsenic," Miss Emily said. "Is that a good one?" "Is . . . arsenic? Yes, ma'am. But what you want--" "I want arsenic." The druggist looked down at her. She looked back at him, erect, her face like a strained flag. "Why, of course," the druggist said. "If that's what you want. But the law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for." Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up. The Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn't come back. When she opened the package at home there was written on the box, under the skull and bones: "For rats." IV So THE NEXT day we all said, "She will kill herself"; and we said it would be the best thing. When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had said, "She will marry him." Then we said, "She will persuade him yet," because Homer himself had remarked--he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks' Club--that he was not a marrying man. Later we said, "Poor Emily" behind the jalousies as they passed on Sunday afternoon in the glittering buggy, Miss Emily with her head high and Homer Barron with his hat cocked and a cigar in his teeth, reins and whip in a yellow glove. Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people. The men did not want to interfere, but at last the ladies forced the Baptist minister--Miss Emily's people were Episcopal-- to call upon her. He would never divulge what happened during that interview, but he refused to go back again. The next Sunday they again drove about the streets, and the following day the minister's wife wrote to Miss Emily's relations in Alabama. So she had blood-kin under her roof again and we sat back to watch developments. At first nothing happened. Then we were sure that they were to be married. We learned that Miss Emily had been to the jeweler's and ordered a man's toilet set in silver, with the letters H. B. on each piece. Two days later we learned that she had bought a complete outfit of men's clothing, including a nightshirt, and we said, "They are married." We were really glad. We were glad because the two female cousins were even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been. So we were not surprised when Homer Barron--the streets had been finished some time since--was gone. We were a little disappointed that there was not a public blowing-off, but we believed that he had gone on to prepare for Miss Emily's coming, or to give her a chance to get rid of the cousins. (By that time it was a cabal, and we were all Miss Emily's allies to help circumvent the cousins.) Sure enough, after another week they departed. And, as we had expected all along, within three days Homer Barron was back in town. A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening. And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time. The Negro man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door remained closed. Now and then we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did that night when they sprinkled the lime, but for almost six months she did not appear on the streets. Then we knew that this was to be expected too; as if that quality of her father which had thwarted her woman's life so many times had been too virulent and too furious to die. When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray. During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning. Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man. From that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or seven years, when she was about forty, during which she gave lessons in china-painting. She fitted up a studio in one of the downstairs rooms, where the daughters and granddaughters of Colonel Sartoris' contemporaries were sent to her with the same regularity and in the same spirit that they were sent to church on Sundays with a twenty-five-cent piece for the collection plate. Meanwhile her taxes had been remitted. Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, and the painting pupils grew up and fell away and did not send their children to her with boxes of color and tedious brushes and pictures cut from the ladies' magazines. The front door closed upon the last one and remained closed for good. When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them. Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped, going in and out with the market basket. Each December we sent her a tax notice, which would be returned by the post office a week later, unclaimed. Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows--she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house--like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which. Thus she passed from generation to generation--dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse. And so she died. Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her. We did not even know she was sick; we had long since given up trying to get any information from the Negro He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuse. She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight. V THE NEGRO met the first of the ladies at the front door and let them in, with their hushed, sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he disappeared. He walked right through the house and out the back and was not seen again. The two female cousins came at once. They held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men --some in their brushed Confederate uniforms--on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years. Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it. The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fill this room with pervading dust. A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man's toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured. Among them lay a collar and tie, as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust. Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded; beneath it the two mute shoes and the discarded socks. The man himself lay in the bed. For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust. Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair. The SwimmerJohn Cheever THE SWIMMER First published in 1964. John Cheever (1912?1982) was born in Quincy, Massachusetts. After being expelled from a private school at seventeen, he went to New York City and published his first story later that year. He lived in various New England and New York towns, especially in commuter towns near New York City. It was one of those midsummer Sundays when everyone sits around saying "I drank too much last night.? You might have heard it whispered by the parishioners leaving church, heard it from the lips of the priest himself, struggling with his cassock in the vestiarium, heard it from the golf links and the tennis courts, heard it from the wildlife preserve where the leader of the Audubon group was suffering from a terrible hangover. "I drank too much," said Donald Westerhazy. "We all drank too much," said Lucinda Merrill. "It must have been the wine," said Helen Westerhazy. "I drank too much of that claret." 'This was at the edge of the Westerhazy's pool. The pool, fed by an artesian well with a high iron content, was a pale shade of green. It was a fine day. In the west there was a massive stand of cumulus clouds so like a city seen from a distance from the bow of an approaching ship that it might have had a name. Lisbon. Hackensack. The sun was hot. Neddy Merrill sat by the green water, one hand in it, one around a glass of gin. He was a slender man?he seemed to have the especial slenderness of youth and while he was far from young he had slid down his banister that morning and given the bronze backside of Aphrodite on the hall table a smack, as he jogged toward the smell of coffee in his dining room. He might have been compared to a summer's day, particularly the last hours of one, and while he lacked a tennis racket or a sail bag the impression was definitely one of youth, sport, and clement weather. He had been swimming and now he was breathing deeply, stertorously as if he could gulp into his lungs the components of that moment, the heat of the sun, the intenseness of his pleasure. It all seemed to flow into his chest. His own house stood in Bullet Park, eight miles to the south, where his four beautiful daughters would have had their lunch and might be playing tennis. "Then it occurred to him that by taking a dogleg to the southwest he could reach his home by water. His life was not confining and the delight he took in this observation could not be explained by its suggestion of escape. He seemed to see, with a cartographer's eye, that string of swimming pools, that quasi-subterranean stream that curved across the county. He had made a discovery, a contribution to modern geography; he would name the stream Lucinda after his wife. He was not a practical joker nor was he a fool but he was determinedly original and had a vague and modest idea of himself as a legendary figure. The day was beautiful and it seemed to him that a long swim might enlarge and celebrate its beauty. He took off a sweater that was hung over his shoulders and dove in. He had an inexplicable contempt for men who did not hurl themselves into pools. He swam a choppy crawl, breathing either with every stroke or every fourth stroke and counting somewhere well in the back of his mind the one-two one-two of a flutter kick. It was not a serviceable stroke for long distances but the domestication of swimming had saddled the sport with some customs and in his part of the world a crawl was customary. To be embraced and sustained by the light green water was less a pleasure, it seemed, than the resumption of a natural condition, and he would have liked to swim without trunks, but this was not possible, considering his project. He hoisted him-self up on the far curb he never used the ladder?and started across the lawn. When Lucinda asked where he was going he said he was going to swim home. The only maps and charts he had to go by were remembered or imaginary but these were clear enough. First there were the Grahams, the Hammers, the Lears, the Howlands, and the Crosscups. He would cross Ditmar Street to the Bunkers and come, after a short portage, to the Levys, the Welchers, and the public pool in Lancaster. Then there were the Hallorans, the Sachses, the Biswangers, Shirley Adams, the Gilmartins, and the Clydes. The day was lovely, and that he lived in a world so generously supplied with water seemed like a clemency, a beneficence. His heart was high and he ran across the grass. Making his way home by an uncommon route gave him the feeling that he was a pilgrim, an explorer, a man with a destiny, and he knew that he would find friends all along the way; friends would line the banks of the Lucinda River. He went through a hedge that separated the Westerhazys' land from the Grahams', walked under some flowering apple trees, passed the shed that housed their pump and filter, and came out at the Grahams' pool. "Why, Neddy," Mrs. Graham said, "what a marvelous surprise. I've been trying to get you on the phone all morning. Here, let me get you a drink." He saw then, like any explorer, that the hospitable customs and traditions of the natives would have to be handled with diplomacy if he was ever going to reach his destination. He did not want to mystify or seem rude to the Grahams nor did he have the time to linger there. He swam the length of their pool and joined them in the sun and was rescued, a few minutes later, by the arrival of two carloads of friends from Connecticut. During the uproarious reunions he was able to slip away. He went down by the front of the Grahams' house, stepped over a thorny hedge, and crossed a vacant lot to the Hammers'. Mrs. Hammer, looking up from her roses, saw him swim by although she wasn't quite sure who it was. The Lears heard him splashing past the open windows of their living room. The Howlands and the Cross-cups were away. After leaving the Howlands' he crossed Ditmar Street and started for the Bunkers', where he could hear, even at that distance, the noise of a party. The water refracted the sound of voices and laughter and seemed to suspend it in midair. The Bunkers' pool was on a rise and he climbed some stairs to a terrace where twenty-five or thirty men and women were drinking. The only person in the water was Rusty Towers, who floated there on a rubber raft. Oh, how bonny and lush were the banks of the Lucinda River! Prosperous men and women gathered by the sapphire-colored waters while caterer's men in white coats passed them cold gin. Overhead a red de Haviland trainer was circling around and around and around in the sky with something like the glee of a child in a swing. Ned felt a passing affection for the scene, a tenderness for the gathering, as if it was something he might touch. In the distance he heard thunder. As soon as Enid Bunker saw him she began to scream: "Oh, look who's here! What a marvelous surprise! When Lucinda said that you couldn't come I thought I'd die." She made her way to him through the crowd, and when they had finished kissing she led him to the bar, a progress that was slowed by the fact that he stopped to kiss eight or ten other women and shake the hands of as many men. A smiling bartender he had seen at a hundred parties gave him a gin and tonic and he stood by the bar for a moment, anxious not to get stuck in any conversation that would delay his voyage. When he seemed about to be surrounded he dove in and swam close to the side to avoid colliding with Rusty's raft. At the far end of the pool he bypassed the Tomlinsons with a broad smile and jogged up the garden path. The gravel cut his feet but this was the only unpleasantness. The party was confined to the pool, and as he went toward the house he heard the brilliant, watery sound of voices fade, heard the noise of a radio from the Bunkers' kitchen, where someone was listening to a hall game. Sunday afternoon. He made his way through the parked cars and down the grassy border of their driveway to Alewives Lane. He did not want to be seen on the road in his bathing trunks but there was no traffic and he made the short distance to the Levys' driveway, marked with a PRIVATE PROPERTY sign and a green tube for The New York Times. All the doors and windows of the big house were open but there were no signs of life; not even a dog barked. He went around the side of the house to the pool and saw that the Levys had only recently left. Glasses and bottles and dishes of nuts were on a table at the deep end, where there was a bathhouse or gazebo, hung with Japanese lanterns. After swimming the pool he got himself a glass and poured a drink. It was his fourth or fifth drink and he had swum nearly half the length of the Lucinda River. He felt tired, clean, and pleased at that moment to be alone; pleased with everything. It would storm. The stand of cumulus cloud ?that city?had risen and darkened, and while he sat there he heard the percussiveness of thunder again. The do Haviland trainer was still circling overhead and it seemed to Ned that he could almost hear the pilot laugh with pleasure in the afternoon; but when there was another peal of thunder he took off for home. A train whistle blew and he wondered what time it had gotten to be. Four? Five? He thought of the provincial station at that hour, where a waiter, his tuxedo concealed by a raincoat, a dwarf with some flowers wrapped in newspaper, and a woman who had been crying would be waiting for the local. It was suddenly growing dark; it was that moment when the pinheaded birds seem to organize their song into some acute and knowledgeable recognition of the storm's approach. Then there was a fine noise of rushing water from the crown of an oak at his back, as if a spigot there had been turned. Then the noise of fountains came from the crowns of all the tall trees. Why did he love storms, what was the meaning of his excitement when the door sprang open and the rain wind fled rudely up the stairs, why had the simple task of shutting the windows of an old house seemed fitting and urgent, why did the first watery notes of a storm wind have for him the unmistakable sound of good news, cheer, glad tidings? Then there was an explosion, a smell of cordite, and rain lashed the Japanese lanterns that Mrs. Levy had bought in Kyoto the year before last, or was it the year before that? He stayed in the Levys' gazebo until the storm had passed. The rain had cooled the air and he shivered. The force of the wind had stripped a maple of its red and yellow leaves and scattered them over the grass and the water. Since it was midsummer the tree must be blighted, and yet he felt a peculiar sadness at this sign of autumn. He braced his shoulders, emptied his glass, and started for the Welchers' pool. This meant crossing the Lindlevs' riding ring and he was surprised to find it overgrown with grass and all the jumps dismantled. He wondered if the Lindleys had sold their horses or gone away for the summer and put them out to board. He seemed to remember having heard something about the Lindleys and their horses but the memory was unclear. On he went, barefoot through the wet grass, to the Welchers', where he found their pool was dry. This breach in his chain of water disappointed him absurdly, and he felt lo like some explorer who seeks a torrential headwater and finds a dead stream. He was disappointed and mystified. It was common enough to go away for the summer but no one ever drained his pool. The Welchers had definitely gone away. The pool furniture was fielded, stacked, and covered with a tarpaulin. The bathhouse was locked. All the windows of the house were shut, and when he went around to the driveway in front he saw a FOR SALE sign nailed to a tree. When had he last heard from the Welchers when, that is, had he and Lucinda last regretted an invitation to dine with them? It seemed only a week or so ago. Was his memory failing or had he so disciplined it in the repression of unpleasant facts that he had damaged his sense of the truth? Then in the distance he heard the sound of a tennis game. This cheered him, cleared away all his apprehensions and let him regard the overcast sky and the cold air with indifference. This was the day that Neddy Merrill swam across the county_ .That was the day! He started off then for his most difficult portage. I lad you gone for a Sunday afternoon ride that day you might have seen him, close to naked, standing on the shoulders of Route 424, waiting for a chance to cross. You might have wondered if he was the victim of foul play, had his car broken down, or was he merely a fool. Standing barefoot in the deposits of the highway beer cans, rags, and blowout patches exposed to all kinds of ridicule, he seemed pitiful. He had known when he started that this was a part of his journey it had been on his maps but confronted with the lines of traffic, worming through the summery light, he found him-self unprepared. I le was laughed at, jeered at, a beer can was thrown at him, and he had no dignity or humor to bring to the situation. He could have gone back, back to the Westerhazys', where Lucinda would still be sitting in the sun. He had signed nothing, vowed nothing, pledged nothing, not even to himself. Why, believing as he did, that all human obduracy was susceptible to common sense, was he unable to turn hack? Why was he determined to complete his journey even if it meant putting his life in danger? At what point had this prank, this joke, this piece of horseplay become serious? He could not go back, he could not even recall with any clearness the green water at the Westerhazys', the sense of inhaling the day's components, the friendly and relaxed voices saying that they had drunk too much. In the space of an hour, more or less, he had covered a distance that made his return impossible. An old man, tooling down the highway at fifteen miles an hour, let him get to the middle of the road, where there was a grass divider. Here he was exposed to the ridicule of the northbound traffic, but after ten or fifteen minutes he was able to cross. From here he had only a short walk to the Recreation Center at the edge of the village of Lancaster, where there were some handball courts and a public pool. The effect of the water on voices, the illusion of brilliance and suspense, was the same here as it had been at the Bunkers' but the sounds here were louder, harsher, and more shrill, and as soon as he entered the crowded enclosure he was confronted with regimentation. "ALL SWIMMERS MUST TAKE A SHOWER BEFORE USING THE POOL. ALL SWIMMERS MUST USE THE FOOTBATH. ALL SWIMMERS MUST WEAR THEIR IDENTIFICATION DISKS." He took a shower, washed his feet in a cloudy and bitter solution, and made his way to the edge of the water. It stank of chlorine and looked to him like a sink. A pair of lifeguards in a pair of towers blew police whistles at what seemed to be regular intervals and abused the swimmers through a public address system. Neddy remembered the sapphire water at the Bunkers' with longing and thought that he might contaminate himself damage his own prosperousness and charm by swimming in this murk, but he reminded himself that he was an explorer, a pilgrim, and that this was merely a stagnant bend in the Lucinda River. He dove, scowling with distaste, into the chlorine and had to swim with his head above water to avoid collisions, but even so he was bumped into, splashed, and jostled. When he got to the shallow end both lifeguards were shouting at him: "Hey, you, you without the identification disk, get outa the water." He did, but they had no way of pursuing him and he went through the reek of suntan oil and chlorine out through the hurricane fence and passed the handball courts. By crossing the road he entered the wooded part of the Halloran estate. The woods were not cleared and the footing was treacherous and difficult until he reached the lawn and the clipped beech hedge that encircled their pool. The Hallorans were friends, an elderly couple of enormous wealth who seemed to bask in the suspicion that they might be Communists. They were zealous reformers but they were not Communists, and yet when they were accused, as they sometimes were, of subversion, it seemed to gratify and excite them. Their beech hedge was yellow and he guessed this had been blighted like the Levys' maple. I is called hullo, hullo, to warn the Hallorans of his approach, to palliate his invasion of their privacy. The Hallorans, for reasons that had never been explained to him, did not wear bathing suits. No explanations were in order, really. Their nakedness was a detail in their uncompromising zeal for reform and he stepped politely out of his trunks before he went through the opening in the hedge. Mrs. Halloran, a stout woman with white hair and a serene face, was reading the limes. Mr. Halloran was taking beech leaves out of the water with a scoop. They seemed not surprised or displeased to sec him. Their pool was perhaps the oldest in the county, a fieldstone rectangle, fed by a brook. It had no filter or pump and its waters were the opaque gold of the stream. "I'm swimming across the county," Ned said. "Why, I didn't know one could," exclaimed Mrs. Halloran. "Well, I've made it from the Westerhazys'," Ned said. "That must be about four miles." He left his trunks at the deep end, walked to the shallow end, and swam this stretch. As he was pulling himself out of the water he heard Mrs. Halloran say, "We've been terribly sorry to hear about all your misfortunes, Neddy." "My misfortunes?" Ned asked. "I don't know what you mean." "Why, we heard that you'd sold the house and that your poor children .. . "I don't recall having sold the house," Ned said, "and the girls are at home." "Yes," Mrs. Halloran sighed. "Yes ..." Her voice filled the air with an unseasonable melancholy and Ned spoke briskly. "Thank you for the swim." "Well, have a nice trip," said Mrs. Halloran. Beyond the hedge he pulled on his trunks and fastened them. They were loose and he wondered if, during the space of an afternoon, he could have lost some weight. He was cold and he was tired and the naked Hallorans and their dark water had depressed him. The swim was too much for his strength but how could he have guessed this, sliding down the banister that morning and sitting in the Westerhazys' sun? His arms were lame. His legs felt rubbery and ached at the joints. The worst of it was the cold in his bones and the feeling that he might never be warm again. Leaves were falling down around him and he smelled wood smoke on the wind. Who would be burning wood at this time of year? He needed a drink. Whiskey would warm him, pick him up, carry him through the last of his journey, refresh his feeling that it was original and valorous to swim across the county. Channel swimmers took brandy. He needed a stimulant. He crossed the lawn in front of the Hallorans' house and went down a little path to where they had built a house for their only daughter, Helen, and her husband, Eric Sachs. The Sachses' pool was small and he found Helen and her husband there. "Oh, Neddy," Helen said. "Did you lunch at Mother's?" "Not really," Ned said. "I did stop to see your parents.? This seemed to be explanation enough. "I'm terribly sorry to break in on you like this but I've taken a chill and I wonder if you'd give me a drink." "Why, I'd love to," Helen said, "but there hasn't been anything in this house to drink since Eric's operation.? That was three years ago." Was he losing his memory, had his gift for concealing painful facts let him forget that he had sold his house, that his children were in trouble, and that his friend had been ill? His eyes slipped from Eric's face to his abdomen, where he saw three pale, sutured scars, two of them at least a foot long. Gone was his navel, and what, Neddy thought, would the roving hand, bed-checking one's gifts at 3 A.M., make of' a belly with no navel, no link to birth, this breach in the succession? "I'm sure you can get a drink at the Biswangers'," Helen said. "They're having an enormous do. You can hear it from here. Listen!" She raised her head and from across the road, the lawns, the gardens, the woods, the fields, he heard again the brilliant noise of voices over water. "Well, I'll get wet," he said, still feeling that he had no freedom of choice about his means of travel. He dove into the Sachses' cold water and, gasping, close to drowning, made his way from one end of the pool to the other. "Lucinda and I want terribly to see you," he said over his shoulder, his face set toward the Biswangers'. "We're sorry it's been so long and we'll call you very soon." He crossed some fields to the Biswangers' and the sounds of revelry there. They would be honored to give him a drink, they would be happy to give him a drink. The Biswangers invited him and Lucinda for dinner four times a year, six weeks in advance. They were always rebuffed and yet they continued to send out their invitations, unwilling to comprehend the rigid and undemocratic realities of their society. 'They were the sort of people who discussed the price of things at cocktails, exchanged market tips during dinner, and after dinner told dirty stories to mixed company. They did not belong to Neddy's set - they were not even on Lucinda's Christmas card list. He went toward their pool with feelings of indifference, charity, and some unease, since it seemed to be getting dark and these were the longest days of the year. The party when he joined it was noisy and large. Grace Biswanger was the kind of hostess who asked the optometrist, the veterinarian, the real-estate dealer, and the dentist. No one was swimming and the twilight, reflected on the water of the pool, had a wintry gleam. There was a bar and he started for this. Then Grace Biswanger saw him she came toward him, not affectionately as he had every right to expect, but bellicosely. "Why, this party has everything," she said loudly, "including a gate crasher." She could not deal him a social blow there was no question about this 35 and he did not flinch. "As a gate crasher," he asked politely, "do I rate a drink?" "Suit yourself," she said. "You don't seem to pay much attention to invitations." She turned her back on him and joined some guests, and he went to the bar and ordered a whiskey. The bartender served him but he served him rudely. His was a world in which the caterer's men kept the social score, and to be rebuffed by a part-time barkeep meant that he had suffered some loss of social esteem. Or perhaps the man was new and uninformed. Then he heard Grace at his back say: "They went for broke overnight nothing but income --and he showed up drunk one Sunday and asked us to loan him five thousand dollars...." She was always talking about money. It was worse than eating your peas off a knife. He dove into the pool, swam its length and went away. The next pool on his list, the last but two, belonged to his old mistress, Shirley Adams. If he had suffered any injuries at the Biswangers' they would be cured here. Love sexual roughhouse in fact --was the supreme elixir, the pain killer, the brightly colored pill that would put the spring back into his step, the joy of life in his heart. They had had an affair last week, last month, last year. He couldn't remember. It was he who had broken it off, his was the upper hand, and he stepped through the gate of the wall that surrounded her pool with nothing so considered as self-confidence. It seemed in a way to be his pool, as the lover, particularly the illicit lover, enjoys the possessions of his mistress with an authority unknown to hole matrimony. She was there, her hair the color of brass, but her figure, at the edge of the lighted, cerulean water, excited in him no profound memories. It had been, he thought, a lighthearted affair, although she had wept when he broke it off. She seemed confused to see him and he wondered if she was still wounded. Would she, God forbid, weep again? "What do you want?" she asked. "I'm swimming across the county." "Good Christ. Will you ever grow up?" "What's the matter?" "If you've come here for money," she said, "I won't give you another cent." "You could give me a drink." "I could but I won't. I'm not alone." "Well, I'm on my way." He dove in and swam the pool, but when he tried to haul himself up onto the curb he found that the strength in his arms and shoulders had gone, and he paddled to the ladder and climbed out. Looking over his shoulder he saw, in the lighted bathhouse, a young man. Going out onto the dark lawn he smelled chrysanthemums or marigolds some stubborn autumnal fragrance on the night air, strong as gas. Looking overhead he saw that the stars had come out, but why should he seem to see Andromeda, Cepheus, and Cassiopeia? What had become of the constellations of midsummer? He began to cry. It was probably the first time in his adult life that he had ever cried, certainly the first time in his life that he had ever felt so miserable, cold, tired, and bewildered. He could not understand the rudeness of the caterer's barkeep or the rudeness of a mistress who had come to him on her knees and showered his trousers with tears. He had swum too long, he had been immersed too long, and his nose and his throat were sore from the water. What he needed then was a drink, some company, and some clean, dry clothes, and while he could have cut directly across the road to his home he went on to the Gilmartins' pool. Here, for the first time in his life, he did not dive but went down the steps into the icy water and swam a hobbled sidestroke that he might have learned as a youth. He staggered with fatigue on his way to the Clydes' and paddled the length of their pool, stopping again and again with his hand on the curb to rest. He climbed up the ladder and wondered if he had the strength to get home. He had done what he wanted, he had swum the county, but he was so stupefied with exhaustion that his triumph seemed vague. Stooped, holding on to the gateposts for support, he turned up the driveway of his own house. The place was dark. Was it so late that they had all gone to bed? Had Lucinda stayed at the Westerhazys' for supper? Had the girls joined her there or gone someplace else? Hadn't they agreed, as they usually did on Sunday, to regret all their invitations and stay at home? He tried the garage doors to see what cars were in but the doors were locked and rust came off the handles onto his hands. Going toward the house, he saw that the force of the thunderstorm had knocked one of the rain gutters loose. It hung down over the front door like an umbrella rib, but it could be fixed in the morning. The house was locked, and he thought that the stupid cook or the stupid maid must have locked the place up until he remembered that it had been some time since they had employed a maid or a cook. He shouted, pounded on the door, tried to force it with his shoulder, and then, looking in at the windows, saw the place was empty. The Drunkard by Frank O'Connor It was a terrible blow to Father when Mr. Dooley on the terrace died. Mr. Dooley was a commercial traveller with two sons in the Dominicans and a car of his own, so socially he was miles ahead of us, but he had no false pride. Mr. Dooley was an intellectual, and, like all intellectuals the thing he loved best was conversation, and in his own limited way Father was a well-read man and could appreciate an intelligent talker. Mr. Dooley was remarkably intelligent. Between business acquaintances and clerical contacts, there was very little he didn?t know about what went on in town, and evening after evening he crossed the road to our gate to explain to Father the news behind the news. He had a low, palavering voice and a knowing smile, and Father would listen in astonishment, giving him a conversational lead now and again, and then stump triumphantly in to Mother with his face aglow and ask: ?Do you know what Mr. Dooley is after telling me?? Ever since, when somebody has given me some bit of information off the record I have found myself on the point of asking: ?Was it Mr. Dooley told you that?? Till I actually saw him laid out in his brown shroud with the rosary beads entwined between his waxy fingers I did not take the report of his death seriously. Even then I felt there must be a catch and that some summer evening Mr. Dooley must reappear at our gate to give us a lowdown on the next world. But Father was very upset, partly because Mr. Dooley was about one age with himself, a thing that always gives a distinctly personal turn to another man?s demise; partly because now he would have no one to tell him what dirty work was behind the latest scene at the Corporation. You could count on your fingers the number of men in Blarney Lane who read the papers as Mr. Dooley did, and none of these would have overlooked the fact that Father was only a laboring man. Even Sullivan, the carpenter, a mere nobody, thought he was a cut above Father. It was certainly a solemn event. ?Half past two to the Curragh,? Father said meditatively, putting down the paper. ?But you?re not thinking of going to the funeral?? Mother asked in alarm. ??Twould be expected,? Father said, scenting opposition. ?I wouldn?t give it to say to them.? ?I think,? said Mother with suppressed emotion, ?it will be as much as anyone will expect if you go to the chapel with him.? (?Going to the chapel,? of course, was one thing, because the body was removed after work, but going to the funeral meant the loss of a half-day?s pay.) ?The people hardly know us,? she added. ?God between us and all harm,? Father replied with dignity, ?we?d be glad if it was our own turn.? To give Father his due, he was always ready to lose a half day for the sake of an old neighbor. It wasn?t so much that he liked funerals as that he was a conscientious man who did as he would be done by; and nothing could have consoled him so much for the prospect of his own death as the assurance of a worthy funeral. And, to give Mother her due, it wasn?t the half day?s pay she begrudged, badly as we could afford it. Drink, you see, was Father?s great weakness. He could keep steady for months, even for years, at a stretch, and while he did he was as good as gold. He was first up in the morning and brought the mother a cup of tea in bed, stayed at home in the evenings and read the paper; saved money and bought himself a new blue serge suit and bowler hat. He laughed at the folly of men who, week in week out, left their hard-earned money with the publicans; and sometimes, to pass an idle hour, he took pencil and paper and calculated precisely how much he saved each week through being a teetotaller. Being a natural optimist he sometimes continued this calculation through the whole span of his prospective existence and the total was breathtaking. He would die worth hundreds. If I had only known it, this was a bad sign; a sign he was becoming stuffed up with spiritual pride and imagining himself better than his neighbors. Sooner or later, the spiritual pride grew till it called for some form of celebration. Then he took a drink?not whisky, of course; nothing like that?just a glass of some harmless drink like lager beer. That was the end of Father. By the time he had taken the first he already realized he had made a fool of himself, took a second to forget it and a third to forget that he couldn?t forget, and at last came home reeling drunk. From this on it was ?The Drunkard?s Progress,? as in the moral prints. Next day he stayed in from work with a sick head while Mother went off to make his excuses at the works, and inside a forthnight he was poor and savage and despondent again. Once he began he drank steadily through everything down to the kitchen clock. Mother and I knew all the phases and dreaded all the dangers. Funerals were one. ?I have to go to Dunphy?s to do a half-day?s work,? said Mother in distress. ?Who?s to look after Larry?? ?I?ll look after Larry,? Father said graciously. ?The little walk will do him good.? There was no more to said, though we all knew I didn?t need anyone to look after me, and that I could quite well have stayed at home and looked after Sonny, but I was being attached to the party to act as a brake on Father. As a brake I had never achieved anything, but Mother still had great faith in me. Next day, when I got home from school, Father was there before me and made a cup of tea for both of us. He was very good at tea, but too heavy in the hand for anything else; the way he cut bread was shocking. Afterwards, we went down the hill to the church, Father wearing his best blue serge and a bowler cocked to one side of his head with the least suggestion of the masher. To his great joy he discovered Peter Crowley among the mourners. Peter was another danger signal, as I knew well from certain experiences after mass on Sunday morning: a mean man, as Mother said, who only went to funerals for the free drinks he could get at them. It turned out that he hadn?t even known Mr. Dooley! But Father had a sort of contemptuous regard for him as one of the foolish people who wasted their good money in public-houses when they could be saving it. Very little of his own money Peter Crowley wasted! It was an excellent funeral from Father?s point of view. He had it all well studied before we set off after the hearse in the afternoon sunlight. ?Five carriages!? he exclaimed. ?Five carriages and sixteen covered cars! There?s one alderman, two councillors and ?tis known how many priests. I didn?t see a funeral like this from the road since Willie Mack, the publican, died.? ?Ah, he was well liked,? said Crowley in his dusky voice. ?My goodness, don?t I know that?? snapped Father. ?Wasn?t the man my best friend? Two nights before he died?only two nights?he was over telling me the goings-on about the housing contract. Them fellow in the Corporation are night and day robbers. But even I never imagined he was as well connected as that.? Father was stepping out like a boy, pleased with everything: the other mourners, and the fine houses along Sunday?s Well. I knew the danger signals were there in full force: a sunny day, a fine funeral, and a distinguished company of clerics and public men were bringing out all the natural vanity and flightiness of Father?s character. It was with something like genuine pleasure that he saw his old friend lowered into the grave; with the sense of having performed a duty and a pleasant awareness that however much he would miss poor Mr. Dooley in the long summer evenings, it was he and not poor Mr. Dooley who would do the missing. ?We?ll be making tracks before they break up,? he whispered to Crowley as the gravediggers tossed in the first shovelfuls of clay, and away he went, hopping like a goat from grassy hump to hump. The drivers, who were probably in the same state as himself, though without months of abstinence to put an edge to it, looked up hopefully. ?Are they nearly finished, Mick,? bawled one. ?All over now bar the last prayers,? trumpeted Father in the tone of one who brings news of great rejoicing. The carriages passed us in a lather of dust several hundred yards from the public-house, and Father, whose feet gave him trouble in hot weather, quickened his pace, looking nervously over his shoulder for any sign of the main body of mourners crossing the hill. In a crowd like that a man might be kept waiting. When we did reach the pub the carriages were drawn up outside, and solemn men in black ties were cautiously bringing out consolation to mysterious females whose hands reached out modestly from behind the drawn blinds of the coaches. Inside the pub there were only the drivers and a couple of shawly women. I felt if I was to act as a brake at all, this was the time, so I pulled Father by the coattails. ?Dadda, can?t we go home now?? I asked. ?Two minutes now,? he said, beaming affectionately. ?Just a bottle of lemonade and we?ll go home.? This was a bribe, and I knew it, but I was always a child of weak character. Father ordered lemonade and two pints. I was thirsty and swallowed my drink at once. But that wasn?t Father?s way. He had long months of abstinence behind him and an eternity of pleasure before. He took out his pipe, blew through it, filled it, and then lit it with loud pops, his eyes bulging above it. After that he deliberately turned his back on the pint, leaned one elbow on the counter in the attitude of a man who did not know there was a pint behind him, and deliberately brushed the tobacco from his palms. He had settled down for the evening. He was steadily working through all the important funerals he had ever attended. The carriages departed and the minor mourners drifted in till the pub was half full. ?Dada,? I said, pulling his coat again, ?can?t we go home now?? ?Ah, your mother won?t be in for a long time yet,? he said benevolently enough. ?Run out in the road and play, can? you?? It struck me as very cool, the way grown-ups assumed that you could play all by yourself on a strange road. I began to get bored as I had so often been bored before. I knew Father was quite capable of lingering there till nightfall. I knew I might have to bring him home, blind drunk, down Blarney Lane, with all the old women at their doors, saying: ?Mick Delaney is on it again.? I knew that my mother would be half crazy with anxiety; that next day Father wouldn?t go out to work; and before the end of the week she would be running down to the pawn with the clock under her shawl. I could never get over the lonesomeness of the kitchen without a clock. I was still thirsty. I found if I stood on tiptoe I could just reach Father?s glass, and the idea occurred to me that it would be interesting to know what the contents were like. He had his back to it and wouldn?t notice. I took down the glass and sipped cautiously. It was a terrible disappointment. I was astonished that he could even drink such stuff. It looked as if he had never tried lemonade. I should have advised him about lemonade but he was holding forth himself in great style. I heard him say that bands were a great addition to a funeral. He put his arms in the position of someone holding a rifle in reverse and hummed a few bars of Chopin?s Funeral March. Crowley nodded reverently. I took a longer drink and began to see that porter might have its advantages. I felt pleasantly elevated and philosophic. Father hummed a few bars of the Dead March in Saul. It was a nice pub and a very fine funeral, and I felt sure that poor Mr. Dooley in Heaven must be highly gratified. At the same time I thought they might have given him a band. As Father said, bands were a great addition. But the wonderful thing about porter was the way it made you stand aside, or rather float aloft like a cherub rolling on a cloud, and watch yourself with your legs crossed, leaning against a bar counter, not worrying about trifles but thinking deep, serious, grown-up thoughts about life and death. Looking at yourself like that, you couldn?t help thinking after a while how funny you looked, and suddenly you got embarrassed and wanted to giggle. But by the time I had finished the pint, that phase too had passed; I found it hard to put back the glass, the counter seemed to have grown so high. Melancholia was supervening again. ?Well,? Father said reverently, reaching behind him for his drink, ?God rest the poor man?s soul, wherever he is!? He stopped, looked first at the glass, and then at the people round him. ?Hello,? he said in a fairly good-humored tone, as if he were just prepared to consider it a joke, even if it was in bad taste, ?who was at this?? There was silence for a moment while the publican and the old women looked first at Father and then at his glass. ?There was no one at it, my good man,? one of the women said with a offended air. ?Is it robbers you think we are?? ?Ah, there?s no one here would do a thing like that, Mick,? said the publican in a shocked tone. ?Well, someone did it,? said Father, his smile beginning to wear off. ?If they did, they were them that were nearer it,? said the woman darkly, giving me a dirty look; and at the same moment the truth began to dawn on Father. I supposed I might have looked a bit starry-eyed. He bent and shook me. ?Are you all right, Larry?? he asked in alarm. Peter Crowley looked down at me and grinned. ?Could you beat that?? he exclaimed in a husky voice. I could, and without difficulty. I started to get sick. Father jumped back in holy terror that I might spoil his good suit, and hastily opened the back door. ?Run! run! run!? he shouted. I saw the sunlit wall outside with the ivy overhanging it, and ran. The intention was good but the performance was exaggerated, because I lurched right into the wall, hurting it badly, as it seemed to me. Being always very polite, I said ?Pardon? before the second bout came on me. Father, still concerned for his suit, came up behind and cautiously held me while I got sick. ?That?s a good boy!? he said encouragingly. ?You?ll be grand when you get that up.? Begor, I was not grand! Grand was the last thing I was. I gave one unmerciful wail out of me as he steered me back to the pub and put me sitting on the bench near the shawlies. They drew themselves up with an offended air, still sore at the suggestion that they had drunk his pint. ?God help us!? moaned one, looking pityingly at me, ?isn?t it the likes of them would be fathers?? ?Mick,? said the publican in alarm, spraying sawdust on my tracks, ?that child isn?t supposed to be in here at all. You?d better take him home quick in case a bobby would see him.? ?Merciful God!? whimpered Father, raising his eyes to heaven and clapping his hands silently as he only did when distraught, ?What misfortune was on me? Or what will his mother say? ? If women might stop at home and look after their children themselves!? he added in a snarl for the benefit of the shawlies. ?Are them carriages all gone, Bill?? ?The carriages are finished long ago, Mick,? replied the publican. ?I?ll take him home,? Father said despairingly?. ?I?ll never bring you out again,? he threatened me. ?Here,? he added, giving me the clean handkerchief from his breast pocket, ?put that over your eye.? The blood on the handkerchief was the first indication I got that I was cut, and instantly my temple began to throb and I set up another howl. ?Whisht, whisht, whisht!? Father said testily, steering me out the door. ?One?d think you were killed. That?s nothing. We?ll wash it when we get home.? ?Steady now, old scout!? Crowley said, taking the other side of me. ?You?ll be all right in a minute.? I never met two men who knew less about the effects of drink. The first breath of fresh air and the warmth of the sun made me groggier than ever and I pitched and rolled between wind and tide till Father started to whimper again. ?God Almighty, and the whole road out! What misfortune was on me didn?t stop at my work! Can?t you walk straight?? I couldn?t. I saw plain enough that, coaxed by the sunlight, every woman old and young in Blarney Lane was leaning over her half-door or sitting on her doorstep. They all stopped gabbling to gape at the strange spectacle of two sober, middle-aged men bringing home a drunken small boy with a cut over his eye. Father, torn between the shamefast desire to get me home as quick as he could, and the neighbourly need to explain that it wasn?t his fault, finally halted outside Mrs. Roche?s. There was a gang of old women outside a door at the opposite side of the road. I didn?t like the look of them from the first. They seemed altogether too interested in me. I leaned against the wall of Mrs. Roche?s cottage with my hands in my trousers pockets, thinking mournfully of poor Mr. Dooley in his cold grave on the Curragh, who would never walk down the road again, and, with great feeling, I began to sing a favorite song of Father?s. Though lost to Mononia and cold in the grave He returns to Kincora no more. ?Wisha, the poor child!? Mrs. Roche said. ?Haven?t he a lovely voice, God bless him!? That was what I thought myself, so I was the more surprised when Father said ?Whisht!? and raised a threatening finger at me. He didn?t seem to realize the appropriateness of the song, so I sang louder than ever. ?Whisht, I tell you!? he snapped, and then tried to work up a smile for Mrs. Roche?s benefit. ?We?re nearly home now. I?ll carry you the rest of the way.? But, drunk and all as I was, I knew better than to be carried home ignominiously like that. ?Now,? I said severely, ?can?t you leave me alone? I can walk all right. ?Tis only my head. All I want is a rest.? ?But you can rest at home in bed,? he said viciously, trying to pick me up, and I knew by the flush on his face that he was very vexed. ?Ah, Jasus,? I said crossly, ?what do I want to go home for? Why the hell can?t you leave me alone?? For some reason the gang of old women at the other side of the road thought this very funny. They nearly split their sides over it. A gassy fury began to expand in me at the thought that a fellow couldn?t have a drop taken without the whole neighbourhood coming out to make game of him. ?Who are ye laughing at?? I shouted, clenching my fists at them. ?I?ll make ye laugh at the other side of yeer faces if ye don?t let me pass.? They seemed to think this funnier still; I had never seen such ill-mannered people. ?Go away, ye bloody bitches!? I said. ?Whisht, whisht, whisht, I tell you!? snarled Father, abandoning all pretence of amusement and dragging me along behind him by the hand. I was maddened by the women?s shrieks of laughter. I was maddened by Father?s bullying. I tried to dig in my heels but he was too powerful for me, and I could only see the women by looking back over my shoulder. ?Take care or I?ll come back and show ye!? I shouted. ?I?ll teach ye to let decent people pass. Fitter for ye to stop at home and wash yeer dirty faces.? ?Twill be all over the road,? whimpered Father. ?Never again, never again, not if I lived to be a thousand!? To this day I don?t know whether he was forswearing me or the drink. By way of a song suitable to my heroic mood I bawled ?The Boys of Wexford,? as he dragged me in home. Crowley, knowing he was not safe, made off and Father undressed me and put me to bed. I couldn?t sleep because of the whirling in my head. It was very unpleasant, and I got sick again. Father came in with a wet cloth and mopped up after me. I lay in a fever, listening to him chopping sticks to start a fire. After that I heard him lay the table. Suddenly the front door banged open and Mother stormed in with Sonny in her arms, not her usual gentle, timid self, but a wild, raging woman. It was clear that she had heard it all from the neighbours. ?Mick Delaney,? she cried hysterically, ?what did you do to my son?? ?Whisht, woman, whisht, whisht!? he hissed, dancing from one foot to the other. ?Do you want the whole road to hear?? ?Ah,? she said with a horrifying laugh, ?the road knows all about it by this time. The road knows the way you filled your unfortunate innocent child with drink to make sport for you and that other rotten, filthy brute.? ?But I gave him no drink,? he shouted, aghast at the horrifying interpretation the neighbours had chosen to give his misfortune. ?He took it while my back was turned. What the hell do you think I am?? ?Ah,? she replied bitterly, ?everyone knows what you are now. God forgive you, wasting our hard-earned few ha?pence on drink, and bringing up your child to be a drunken corner-boy like yourself.? Then she swept into the bedroom and threw herself on her knees by the bed. She moaned when she saw the gash over my eye. In the kitchen Sonny set up a loud bawl on his own, and a moment later Father appeared in the bedroom door with his cap over his eyes, wearing an expression of the most intense self-pity. ?That?s a nice way to talk to me after all I went through,? he whined. ?That?s a nice accusation that I was drinking. Not one drop of drink crossed my lips the whole day. How could it when he drank it all? I?m the one that ought to be pitied, with my day ruined on me, and I after being made a show for the whole road.? But the next morning, when he got up and went out quietly to work with his dinner-basket, Mother threw herself at me in the bed and kissed me. It seemed it was all my doing, and I was being given a holiday till my eye got better. ?My brave little man!? she said with her eyes shining. ?It was God did it you were there. You were his guardian angel.? A&P by john updike In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before. By the time I got her feathers smoothed and her goodies into a bag -- she gives me a little snort in passing, if she'd been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem -- by the time I get her on her way the girls had circled around the bread and were coming back, without a pushcart, back my way along the counters, in the aisle between the check-outs and the Special bins. They didn't even have shoes on. There was this chunky one, with the two-piece -- it was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale so I guessed she just got it (the suit) -- there was this one, with one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right, and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes, and a chin that was too long -- you know, the kind of girl other girls think is very "striking" and "attractive" but never quite makes it, as they very well know, which is why they like her so much -- and then the third one, that wasn't quite so tall. She was the queen. She kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their shoulders round. She didn't look around, not this queen; she just walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima donna legs. She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it. You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?) but you got the idea she had talked the other two into coming in here with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight. She had on a kind of dirty-pink - - beige maybe, I don't know -- bathing suit with a little nubble all over it and, what got me, the straps were down. They were off her shoulders looped loose around the cool tops of her arms, and I guess as a result the suit had slipped a little on her, so all around the top of the cloth there was this shining rim. If it hadn't been there you wouldn't have known there could have been anything whiter than those shoulders. With the straps pushed off, there was nothing between the top of the suit and the top of her head except just her, this clean bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light. I mean, it was more than pretty. She had sort of oaky hair that the sun and salt had bleached, done up in a bun that was unraveling, and a kind of prim face. Walking into the A & P with your straps down, I suppose it's the only kind of face you can have. She held her head so high her neck, coming up out of those white shoulders, looked kind of stretched, but I didn't mind. The longer her neck was, the more of her there was. She must have felt in the corner of her eye me and over my shoulder Stokesie in the second slot watching, but she didn't tip. Not this queen. She kept her eyes moving across the racks, and stopped, and turned so slow it made my stomach rub the inside of my apron, and buzzed to the other two, who kind of huddled against her for relief, and they all three of them went up the cat-and-dog-food-breakfast-cereal-macaroni-rice-raisins-seasonings-spreads-spaghetti-soft drinks- crackers-and- cookies aisle. From the third slot I look straight up this aisle to the meat counter, and I watched them all the way. The fat one with the tan sort of fumbled with the cookies, but on second thought she put the packages back. The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle -- the girls were walking against the usual traffic (not that we have one-way signs or anything) -- were pretty hilarious. You could see them, when Queenie's white shoulders dawned on them, kind of jerk, or hop, or hiccup, but their eyes snapped back to their own baskets and on they pushed. I bet you could set off dynamite in an A & P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists and muttering "Let me see, there was a third thing, began with A, asparagus, no, ah, yes, applesauce!" or whatever it is they do mutter. But there was no doubt, this jiggled them. A few house-slaves in pin curlers even looked around after pushing their carts past to make sure what they had seen was correct. You know, it's one thing to have a girl in a bathing suit down on the beach, where what with the glare nobody can look at each other much anyway, and another thing in the cool of the A & P, under the fluorescent lights, against all those stacked packages, with her feet paddling along naked over our checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor. "Oh Daddy," Stokesie said beside me. "I feel so faint." "Darling," I said. "Hold me tight." Stokesie's married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already, but as far as I can tell that's the only difference. He's twenty-two, and I was nineteen this April. "Is it done?" he asks, the responsible married man finding his voice. I forgot to say he thinks he's going to be manager some sunny day, maybe in 1990 when it's called the Great Alexandrov and Petrooshki Tea Company or something. What he meant was, our town is five miles from a beach, with a big summer colony out on the Point, but we're right in the middle of town, and the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before they get out of the car into the street. And anyway these are usually women with six children and varicose veins mapping their legs and nobody, including them, could care less. As I say, we're right in the middle of town, and if you stand at our front doors you can see two banks and the Congregational church and the newspaper store and three real-estate offices and about twenty-seven old free-loaders tearing up Central Street because the sewer broke again. It's not as if we're on the Cape; we're north of Boston and there's people in this town haven't seen the ocean for twenty years. The girls had reached the meat counter and were asking McMahon something. He pointed, they pointed, and they shuffled out of sight behind a pyramid of Diet Delight peaches. All that was left for us to see was old McMahon patting his mouth and looking after them sizing up their joints. Poor kids, I began to feel sorry for them, they couldn't help it. Now here comes the sad part of the story, at least my family says it's sad but I don't think it's sad myself. The store's pretty empty, it being Thursday afternoon, so there was nothing much to do except lean on the register and wait for the girls to show up again. The whole store was like a pinball machine and I didn't know which tunnel they'd come out of. After a while they come around out of the far aisle, around the light bulbs, records at discount of the Caribbean Six or Tony Martin Sings or some such gunk you wonder they waste the wax on, six-packs of candy bars, and plastic toys done up in cellophane that faIl apart when a kid looks at them anyway. Around they come, Queenie still leading the way, and holding a little gray jar in her hand. Slots Three through Seven are unmanned and I could see her wondering between Stokes and me, but Stokesie with his usual luck draws an old party in baggy gray pants who stumbles up with four giant cans of pineapple juice (what do these bums do with all that pineapple juice' I've often asked myself) so the girls come to me. Queenie puts down the jar and I take it into my fingers icy cold. Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream: 49¢. Now her hands are empty, not a ring or a bracelet, bare as God made them, and I wonder where the money's coming from. Still with that prim look she lifts a folded dollar bill out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top. The jar went heavy in my hand. Really, I thought that was so cute. Then everybody's luck begins to run out. Lengel comes in from haggling with a truck full of cabbages on the lot and is about to scuttle into that door marked MANAGER behind which he hides all day when the girls touch his eye. Lengel's pretty dreary, teaches Sunday school and the rest, but he doesn't miss that much. He comes over and says, "Girls, this isn't the beach." Queenie blushes, though maybe it's just a brush of sunburn I was noticing for the first time, now that she was so close. "My mother asked me to pick up a jar of herring snacks." Her voice kind of startled me, the way voices do when you see the people first, coming out so flat and dumb yet kind of tony, too, the way it ticked over "pick up" and "snacks." All of a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room. Her father and the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big plate and they were all holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them. When my parents have somebody over they get lemonade and if it's a real racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with "They'll Do It Every Time" cartoons stenciled on. "That's all right," Lengel said. "But this isn't the beach." His repeating this struck me as funny, as if it had just occurred to him, and he had been thinking all these years the A & P was a great big dune and he was the head lifeguard. He didn't like my smiling -- -as I say he doesn't miss much -- but he concentrates on giving the girls that sad Sunday- school-superintendent stare. Queenie's blush is no sunburn now, and the plump one in plaid, that I liked better from the back -- a really sweet can -- pipes up, "We weren't doing any shopping. We just came in for the one thing." "That makes no difference," Lengel tells her, and I could see from the way his eyes went that he hadn't noticed she was wearing a two-piece before. "We want you decently dressed when you come in here." "We are decent," Queenie says suddenly, her lower lip pushing, getting sore now that she remembers her place, a place from which the crowd that runs the A & P must look pretty crummy. Fancy Herring Snacks flashed in her very blue eyes. "Girls, I don't want to argue with you. After this come in here with your shoulders covered. It's our policy." He turns his back. That's policy for you. Policy is what the kingpins want. What the others want is juvenile delinquency. All this while, the customers had been showing up with their carts but, you know, sheep, seeing a scene, they had all bunched up on Stokesie, who shook open a paper bag as gently as peeling a peach, not wanting to miss a word. I could feel in the silence everybody getting nervous, most of all Lengel, who asks me, "Sammy, have you rung up this purchase?" I thought and said "No" but it wasn't about that I was thinking. I go through the punches, 4, 9, GROC, TOT -- it's more complicated than you think, and after you do it often enough, it begins to make a little song, that you hear words to, in my case "Hello (bing) there, you (gung) hap-py pee-pul (splat)"-the splat being the drawer flying out. I uncrease the bill, tenderly as you may imagine, it just having come from between the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had ever known were there, and pass a half and a penny into her narrow pink palm, and nestle the herrings in a bag and twist its neck and hand it over, all the time thinking. The girls, and who'd blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say "I quit" to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero. They keep right on going, into the electric eye; the door flies open and they flicker across the lot to their car, Queenie and Plaid and Big Tall Goony-Goony (not that as raw material she was so bad), leaving me with Lengel and a kink in his eyebrow. "Did you say something, Sammy?" "I said I quit." "I thought you did." "You didn't have to embarrass them." "It was they who were embarrassing us." I started to say something that came out "Fiddle-de-doo." It's a saying of my grand- mother's, and I know she would have been pleased. "I don't think you know what you're saying," Lengel said. "I know you don't," I said. "But I do." I pull the bow at the back of my apron and start shrugging it off my shoulders. A couple customers that had been heading for my slot begin to knock against each other, like scared pigs in a chute. Lengel siIGHS and begins to look very patient and old and gray. He's been a friend of my parents for years. "Sammy, you don't want to do this to your Mom and Dad," he tells me. It's true, I don't. But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it's fatal not to go through with it. I fold the apron, "Sammy" stitched in red on the pocket, and put it on the counter, and drop the bow tie on top of it. The bow tie is theirs, if you've ever wondered. "You'll feel this for the rest of your life," Lengel says, and I know that's true, too, but remembering how he made that pretty girl blush makes me so scrunchy inside I punch the No Sale tab and the machine whirs "pee-pul" and the drawer splats out. One advantage to this scene taking place in summer, I can follow this up with a clean exit, there's no fumbling around getting your coat and galoshes, I just saunter into the electric eye in my white shirt that my mother ironed the night before, and the door heaves itself open, and outside the sunshine is skating around on the asphalt. I look around for my girls, but they're gone, of course. There wasn't anybody but some young married screaming with her children about some candy they didn't get by the door of a powder-blue Falcon station wagon. Looking back in the big windows, over the bags of peat moss and aluminum lawn furniture stacked on the pavement, I could see Lengel in my place in the slot, checking the sheep through. His face was dark gray and his back stiff, as if he'd just had an injection of iron, and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter. Bahnwärter Thiel (Flagman Thiel) By Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann Translated by Wallace Johnson 1989 Chapter One Every Sunday, signalman Thiel sat in the church in Neu-Zittau, except the days on which he had duty, or was ill and was lying in bed. In the course of ten years, he had only been ill twice: the first time was as a result of a piece of coal, which fell the tender of a passing locomotive, and had struck him and had hurled him, with a broken leg, into the ditch alongside the track; the other time was on account of a wine bottle, which flew out of the express train speeding by on to the middle of his chest. Apart from these two accidents, nothing was able to keep him away from the church, so long as he was free. For the first five years, he had to make his way from Schön-Schornstein, a hamlet on the river Spree, over to Neu-Zittau alone. Then on one beautiful day, he appeared in the company of a frail and ill-looking woman, who, as people said, scarcely suited his herculean figure. And on one beautiful Sunday afternoon, he ceremonially gave his hand to this very same person at the church altar in the life-long bond of marriage. Then for two years, the young, sensitive woman sat at his side in the church-pew; for two years, her hollow-cheeked, delicate face next to his, browned by the weather, looked into the ancient hymn-book. Then suddenly, as before, the signalman sat there alone. On one of the previous weekdays, the Death-bell had sounded: that was her lot. On the signalman, so the people assured, one had hardly perceived any changes. The buttons of his clean Sunday-suit were made as shiny as before, and as always, his red hair was well oiled and militarily parted; only that he carried his broad, hairy neck a little lower and that he listened to the sermon more closely or sang more eagerly, than he had previously done. It was a common view that the death of his wife had not upset him considerably, and this view was enforced, when he, after the course of a year, was married for a second time, to a big, strong woman, a dairymaid, from the Alte-Grund. Also the parish-priest allowed himself to express his misgivings, when Thiel came to announce the wedding. 'So you want to marry again, already?' 'I cannot keep house with a dead woman, Father!' 'Now, of course. But I say, you are hurrying a little.' 'I shall lose my boy, Father.' Thiel's wife had died in the weeks following child-birth, and the boy, which she had brought into the world, lived and had taken the name of Tobias. 'Ah, the boy,' said the priest, and he made a gesture, which clearly showed that he had now, for the first time, remembered the child. 'That is something else. Where have you been keeping him while you were on duty?' Thiel now told of how he had given Tobias over to an old woman, who had once nearly allowed him to burn, while on another occasion, he had rolled off her lap on to the floor, without, fortunately, suffering more than a large bump. So he said that this could not go on any longer to the boy, who, weak as he was, needed a totally special kind of nursing. So, because he had promised his dead wife to carry the substantial worry of the welfare of the boy at all times, he decided upon this course of action. The people definitely had nothing to object to concerning the new couple, who now came every Sunday to the church. The earlier dairymaid seemed as she were made for the signalman. She was hardly half-a-head smaller than him, and she surpassed him in the corpulence of limbs. Also, her face was made as coarsely as his; only that there was a difference with his, in that her face lacked soul. If Thiel had only wanted in his second wife to have an untiring worker and an exemplary house-keeper, then this wish was surprisingly fulfilled. However, he had taken three things he did not know about in taking this wife: a hard, domineering nature, nagging and a brutal temper. After the course of half a year, it was made known in the hamlet, who ruled the roost in the signalman's small house. One felt sorry for the signalman. The outraged husbands said that it was lucky for 'the hussy' that she had such a good lamb as Thiel for a husband; if she were to come up against some men, she would get terribly hurt. Such an 'animal' must be tamed, they said, and if things do not go otherwise, then start with the beating. She ought to be thoroughly beaten, so that it really made her sore. However, Thiel was not the man to give her a beating, despite his wiry arms. That, about which the people got excited, seemed to cause him little worry. He usually let the endless lectures from his wife wash over him, without saying a word, and if he were to answer back, the slow-tempo, as well as the soft, cool sound of his voice was in the most peculiar contrast to the squeaking nagging of his wife. The outside world seemed to be able to affect him little; it was as if he bore something in himself, in which all evil done to him was amply offset with good. Despite his untiring apathy, there were moments, in which he did not stand for it. It was always so on the occasions which concerned Tobias. Then, his childly-good, submissive nature gained a coat of strength, to which such a fierce temper as that of Lene herself dared not oppose. However the moments in which he turned out this side of his nature became, with time, more and more rare, and eventually, became lost. A certain suffering resistance, which he had put up against the domineeringness of Lene during the first year, lost itself as well in the second year. He did not go to work any more with the earlier indifference after he had had row with her, if he had not calmed her down before. At the end, he nearly always condescended himself to ask her to be nice to him again. - Not as before was his post in the middle of the Brandenburg pine-forest his most belovèd abode. The quiet, devoted thoughts of his dead wife were frustrated by those of his living wife. Not reluctantly, as at first, did he make his way back home, after he had earlier counted the hours and minutes until quitting time, but with an impassioned haste. He, who had been bound with his first wife through a more spiritual love, driven by the power of natural urges into the control of his second wife, became at the end, in almost all things, totally dependent on her. At times he felt guilty about the reversal of things, and he required a number of extraordinary aids, in order to help himself get over this. So he secretly declared the signalman's hut and the stretch of track, which he looked after, in a way, as sacred land, which was said to be dedicated exclusively to the spirit of the dead woman. With the help of all kinds of excuses, he had been successful, up to this time, in keeping his wife from accompanying him to the hut. He hoped that he could continue to do this. She would not have known in which direction she ought to start out, in order to find his hut, whose number she also did not know. So Thiel calmed his thoughts in being able to split conscientiously, for himself, the available time between his living and dead wives. Often, admittedly, especially in his moments of solitary thought, if he had been intimately bound with his dead wife, he saw his present situation in the light of truth, and he felt a revulsion for it. When he had day duty, his spiritual contact with his dead wife was limited to a collection of belovèd memories from the time he had spent living with her. However, in the dark, when the snow storms blew through the pines and across the track, in the deep middle of the night, by the light of his lantern, the signalman's hut became a chapel. A faded photograph of the dead woman lay on the table before him, a hymn-book and a Bible lay open, he alternated between reading and singing through the long night, only interrupted from doing these things at the times when the trains rushed by; and as a result, this turned into an ecstacy, which heightened itself into visions, in which he saw the dead woman personified before him. But the post, which the signalman had held now, unbroken for ten years, had in its isolation, boosted his mysterious inclination. The hut stood at least three-quarters of an hour from every settlement in all of the four wind-directions and close by a railway-crossing, whose barriers the signalman also had to operate. In summer went days, in winter weeks, without a human foot, except those of the signalman and his colleague, passing the stretch of track. The weather and the change of the times of the year brought, in their periodical recurrence, the only changes to this solitude. The events, which, incidentally, had broken the regular running of Thiel's duty time, apart from the two accidents, were easy to review. Four years ago, the Kaiser's special train had gone by, which the Kaiser himself had taken to Breslau. On a winter night, the express train had run over a roebuck. On a hot summer's day, Thiel had found, on his track-check, a corked wine bottle, which was scorching hot to the touch and whose contents were said by him to have been rather good, because it had streamed out like a fountain, after removing the cork, and had obviously fermented. This bottle, which was laid by Thiel in the shallow edge of the forest lake, in order to cool, had become lost in some way or other, so that, after many years, he still had to feel sorry for their loss. A spring, close behind the hut, provided several diversions for the signalman. From time to time, busy railway- and telegraph-workers took a drink here, and naturally, a short conversation would result with him. Also, the forester came here occasionally, in order to quench his thirst. Tobias developed only slowly: not until the end of his second year of life, did he learn to just speak and to just walk. To his father, he proved a totally special affection. As he became to understand more, the old love of his father was awoken again. In the time as this grew, the love of his step-mother towards Tobias decreased, and was transformed in to an unmistakable dislike, when Lene, after the course of another year, also gave birth to a boy. From then on, a terrible time began for Tobias. He became, especially in the absence of his father, incessantly tormented and he had to devote, without the smallest reward, his weak strength in the services of the small squalling baby, whereby he became more and more worn out. His head grew to an unusual size; his fire-red hair and his chalky-white face, in conjunction with his remaining wretched figure, made an unsightly, pitiable impression. In such a way, whenever the backward Tobias dragged himself down to the Spree, with his little brother, the infant, bursting with health, on his arm, then the curses from behind the windows of the cottage, which never found open expression, became loud. However, Thiel, whom all these things concerned, seemed to have no eyes for them, and he also did not want to understand the hints which were given to him by the well-meaning neighbouring people. Chapter Two On one June morning towards seven o'clock, Thiel arrived back from his duty. His wife had not so soon as finished her greeting, when she began to complain in her usual manner. The lease on the field, which had, up to this time, provided the family with its potato requirement, had been terminated weeks ago, and Lene had not yet succeeded in finding a replacement. Even though the care of the field was part her responsibilities, Thiel had to hear about this once again, that no-one, except he, would be to blame, if this year, they had to buy ten sacks of potatoes for a considerable sum of money. Thiel only muttered and he took himself immediately off to the bed of his eldest son, which he shared with him in the nights while he was on duty, paying little attention to Lene's speech. Here, he stooped and watched the sleeping child with an anxious expression on his good face, whom he eventually woke, after he had, for a while, kept the troublesome flies away from him. In the blue, deep-lying eyes of the awaking boy a touching peace reflected itself. He hastily reached out for his father's hand, while he shaped the corner of his mouth into a pitiful smile. The signalman helped him to get dressed into the small pieces of clothing, when something, like a shadow, suddenly ran through his mind, as he noticed that on the right-hand, slightly-swollen side of the child's back, a few finger marks standing out, white on red. When Lene came back at breakfast, with increased enthusiasm concerning the aforementioned housekeeping matter, Thiel cut her words with the news that the railway-inspector had let him have a piece of land along-side the railway-track right next to the signalman's hut, for nothing, supposedly because it was too remote for him, the railway-inspector. At first, Lene did not want to believe this. However, little by little, her doubts went away, and now she changed into a noticeably good mood. Her questions about the size and quality of the field became really mixed up with others, and when she found out that in addition at this place were two dwarf fruit-trees, she became totally crazy! When she had no-more questions left to ask, and had mercilessly rung the door-bell of the grocer's shop, which, incidentally, could be heard in every house in the hamlet, she rushed out, in order to spread the news in the small hamlet. While Lene was in the grocer's dark room, packed with goods, the signalman occupied himself at home with Tobias. The boy sat on his knee and played with a single pine-cone, which Thiel had brought out of the forest with him. 'What do you want to be?' his father asked him; and this question was as stereotypical as the boy's answer: 'A railway-inspector.' There was no question, that with God's help, something extraordinary ought to come out of Tobias, for the dreams of the signalman aspired in such heights, and he harboured the wish and the hope, in all seriousness. As soon as the answer, 'a railway-inspector', came from the bloodless lips of the small boy, who naturally did not know what that was to mean, Thiel's face began to lighten up, until it really shone with an inner bliss. 'Go Tobias, go and play!' he said abruptly, while he lit his pipe with a lighted spill from the cooking-stove, and the small boy took himself directly out towards the door with a cautious joy. Thiel undressed and went to bed and fell asleep, after he had stared, for some considerable time, full of thought, at the low, cracked ceiling. Towards twelve o'clock midday, he woke up, dressed himself, and went outside into the street, while his wife was preparing lunch in her noisy manner, where he immediately picked up little Tobias, who was scratching chalk out of a hole in the wall and putting it into his mouth. The signalman took him by the hand and went with him past about eight houses in the hamlet, down to the Spree, which lay black and glassy between sparsely leaved poplars. Near to the edge of the water was a block of granite, on which Thiel sat down. The entire hamlet was used to seeing him here in this place, if the weather was at all tolerable. The children especially, hung around him and called him 'father Thiel' and were taught, in particular, a number of games, which he remembered from his childhood. The best of his memories, however, he kept for Tobias. He cut for him a reed-dart, which flew higher than all of those of the other boys. He cut for him a small willow-pipe and even allowed himself to be persuaded to sing the magic formula, in his rusty bass voice, while he tapped the bark softly with the horn-handle of his pocket knife. The people were not at all pleased by his childish tricks; it seemed incomprehensible to them that he was able to spend so much time with the snotty-nosed children. However, they allowed him to be content for the reason that the children were well-looked after in his care. Moreover, Thiel also instructed them in more serious things: he went through the older ones' school work, helped them to learn hymn and Bible verses and he spelt with the younger ones: F-R-O-M - from; Y-O-U - you, and so on. After lunch, the signalman laid himself down once more for a short rest. After it was over, he drank his afternoon coffee and immediately began to prepare for going on duty. He need a lot of time to do all of his preparations; each movement had been worked out for many years; the carefully laid out objects on the small, walnut chest-of-drawers were always put into his clothes' pockets in the same sequence: knife, note-book, comb, a horse's tooth and the old, cased watch. A small book, wrapped in red paper, was handled with special care. During the night, it had lain under the signalman's pillow and was, during the day, always carried around in the breast pocket of his work clothes. On the label, under the wrapping, in awkward, but ornamental, lettering, was written by Thiel's hand, 'Savings book of Tobias Thiel.' The wall-clock with the long pendulum and the yellow face showed a quarter-to-five, when Thiel set off. A small rowing-boat, his property, took him across the river. On the far bank of the Spree, he stood for a few moments and listened back at the hamlet. Finally, he turned on to the broad forest path, and a few minutes later, he was in the middle of the deep-rustling pine forest, whose pine-needles looked like a black-green, wavy sea. Inaudible, like on felt, he strode across damp moss and layers of needles on the forest-floor. He found his way, without looking up, here through the russet-coloured columns of the timber forest, then further on through the densely packed young wood, still further on through the expanded forestry plantation, which was over-shadowed by single, tall, thin pine-trees, left for the protection for the young trees. A bluish, transparent haze, impregnated with all kinds of smells, rose up from the ground and seemed to wash away the forms of the trees. A heavy, milky sky hung low over the tree-tops. Swarms of crows bathed themselves in the grey of the air, mercilessly expelling their screeching voices. Black pools of water filled the hollows of the path and more gloomily mirrored the dull surroundings. Terrible weather, thought Thiel, when he awoke from deep thought and looked up. Suddenly, however, his thoughts took another direction. He vaguely felt that he had left something at home, and after searching through his pockets, he was missing his sandwiches, which he was always obliged to take for halfway through the long duty-time. Hesitantly, he stood there for a while, then suddenly, he turned around, and hurried back in the direction of the village. After a short-time, he had reached the Spree; he crossed over with a few powerful oar-strokes, and he straightaway climbed up on to the gently rising village street, his whole body sweating. The grocer's old, shabby poodle lay in the middle of the street. On the tarred, wooden fence of a cottager's yard sat a hooded crow. It puffed up its feathers, shook itself, nodded, struck up an ear-shattering crowing and took off with a whistling wing-beat, to allow itself to be carried off by the wind into the direction of the forest. Of the inhabitants of the small hamlet, about twenty fishermen and forest-workers with their families, nothing was to be seen. The sound of a screeching voice broke the silence, so loud and shrill that the signalman paused involuntary in his running. A wave of violently forced-out, discordant sounds struck his ears, which seemed to be coming out of the open gabel-window of a house close by, which he knew only too well. Making the noise of his footsteps as quiet as possible, he crept nearer and distinguished rather clearly the voice of his wife. Only a few more steps further, and he was able to understand most of her words. 'What, you merciless, heartless scoundrel! Should the miserable worm cry out its belly from hunger? - What? Eh? Wait, just wait, I'll teach you a lesson - I'll give you something to remember!' For a few moments it was quiet; then a noise could be heard, like if pieces of clothing were being hit. Directly afterwards, a new storm of abusive words vented itself. 'You detestable, little idiot!' rang out in the quickest tempo. 'Do you mean that I ought to leave my own child to hunger, because of such a miserable wretch like you?' she shouted, as a soft-wimpering became audible, 'Or I'll give you a beating that you won't forget for a week.' The wimpering did not fall silent. The signalman felt his heart beating heavily and irregularly. He began to shake slightly. His glance hung, as if absent, firmly on the ground, and his clumsy, hard hand several times pushed a tuft of wet hair to the side, which each time fell back over his freckled brow. For a moment, something threatened to over-power him. It was a cramp, which made his muscles swell and the fingers of his hand clench into a fist. It abated and a dull weariness remained. The signalman trod with unsure footsteps into the narrow tiled hallway. Wearily and slowly, he climbed the creaking wooden stairs. 'Shame, shame, shame!' she began again, and in the process one could hear how someone spewed this out, three times in succession, with all signs of rage and contempt. 'You detestable, vile, deceiptful, malicious, cowardly, nasty lout!' The words followed each other in a rising tone and her voice, which she was forcing out, broke now and again from the strain. 'What, you want to hit my boy? You miserable brat, you have the impudence to hit the helpless child on the mouth? - What? - Eh, what? I do not want to dirty myself on you, however...' At this moment, Thiel opened the living-room door, as the end of the star