Paper Topics

 

Your third and final paper (4-5 pages) is due on Friday, September 20, by 5 p.m. Please email it me.

Paper topics are listed below.

Email Ettiquette: Many students use email addresses that give no indication of their names. If your email address does not indicate your name, please be sure to give your name in all your email messages to me, and please also indicate that you are taking English 200 (unless the subject heading of your message makes this clear). (I teach other courses as well.)

1. You'll need to fill out a self-critique for your paper (click here for the form).

2. You must have a thesis (an argument you can state in one sentence, usually at the end of your first paragraph after you state your topic) in your paper.

3. Underline your thesis sentence. Generally, it is a good idea to state your topic in a few sentences and then state your thesis, as the last sentence of your first paragraph. (Your thesis should be stated in one sentence.)

4. All papers (double spaced) must be electronically delivered to me (in Microsoft Word, preferably, but Wordperfect is OK, too) at [email protected]. If that is not possible, please copy your text into an email and send me the email.

5. Feel free to contact me at any point in the composition process. [email protected].

Paper Format and Composition Guidelines:

--Your essay should have a title that describes specifically what your paper is about. If your title is overly general, it means you do not have a topic or a thesis. It's generally a good idea to have the title of the text(s) and / or film(s) you're discussing in your essay title.

--Do not summarize the plot of the text or film you're discussing. You may assume that your reader has read or seen it carefully and is familiar with the plot.

--Proofread your essay carefully.

--Double space your papers.

--Do not refer to class discussion as in "In this class, we have . . . ."

--Spell out numbers and abbreviations: "Twentieth-century England" not "20th ct. England" (but not dates such as 1972 or October 12).

--Use the present tense when discussing a literary work or film as in "Shakespeare writes . . . ."

--Make sure that nouns and pronouns agree in number (a singular noun goes with a singular pronoun; a plural noun goes with a plural pronoun): "If someone says x, he or she may find . . " or "If people think . .they . . ." Do NOT write "If someone feels . . . they . . ." (in this case a singular noun has been ungrammatically linked to a plural pronoun).

--Give the name of the director and the year of release of any film being discussed, as in Macbeth (dir. Roman Polanski, 1972)

--Underline or italicize titles of films and novels. Put poems in quotation marks.

--When quoting verse (even from a play) indicate line breaks with a "/" and a capital letter in the beginning of the next line, as in "When shall we three meet again / In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"

--When quoting from a novel or short story, give the page number in parentheses after the quotation and put the period after the parentheses, as in "She said (1)."

--Use a 12 point font. I prefer Ariel.

--Number your pages.

--Make sure your paragraphs have strong transitions between them that tell your reader how you are developing your argument. Avoid "Another" as a transition. It tells you that you are listing points rather than developing an argument.

--Make sure your paragraphs are unified. Each paragraph should have one topic, and each paragraph should have a topic sentence which all the other sentences are subordinated to (just as your entire essay has a thesis sentence which subordinates everything else in your essay. A paragraph is like a mini-essay).

--It's O.K. to use "I" or "my" as in "I will argue" or "in my view," but do not personalize your argument ("When I saw the film I felt that . . ."). You're writing a persuasive essay directed at an audience, not an autobiography.

--Integrate quotations into your paper, don't leave them standing by themselves. Write: Victor Frankenstein says ".... (54)."

--Put two spaces between sentences.

--Look out for comma splices, a common error. Two successive complete sentences (independent clauses) may not be joined by a comma. They have to be separated by a period or linked by a colon or semi-colon.

For more information on the following, go to: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/index.html#revising

Effective Writing

Adding Emphasis
Argument/Persuasion: Logic in Argumentative Writing
Coherence
Conciseness: Methods of Eliminating Wordiness
Coping with Writing Anxiety
Developing an Outline
Sample Outline
Non-Sexist Language
Overcoming Writer’s Block
Paragraph
Paragraph (length consistency)
Sentence Variety
Strategies for Improving Sentence Clarity
Transitional Devices (Connecting Words)
Using Metaphors in Creative Writing
Writing with Computers

Remember to back up your points with concrete references to the film / text and quotations from it.

Paper Topics for Third and Final paper.

The Monk

Censorship and repression--is there any alternative?

The female grotesque as the return of the repressed--The Bleeding Nun; Agnes's story and her dead baby.

Dracula.

--the narrative structure. Why is it divided up into various first person accounts? Who wrote the introductory comments (on p.6)? Why do the accounts emerge into one?

--the heterogeous narratives and mass media and recording, writing devices (only film is left out)--telegrams, newspaper accounts, captain's log, diaries, records, advertising, and so on.

--the role of Mina, stenography, typing (versus J.. Harker as secretary), compiler. Why does she become increasingly important in the novel?

--the colors red and white

--the references to Shakespeare--what are they and what are they doing?

---censorship and uncensorship; secrecy (and Mina)

--Dracula's sexuality, vampirism as metaphor for sex (see the scene with Lucy and the stake). Is this a sexist, soft-porn novel? Or is it a feminist novel? Or both? Or is it a queer novel? (i.e., sexuality is more important than gender) Is Dracula gay? Check out his intervention whenhte three vampire women almost bite Jonathan. (Coppola includes a brief bit of lesbianism in his film version.)

--money and vampyrism. Is this a pro-capitalist or anti-capitalist novel? Is Dracula a feudal prince or a neocapitalist businessman? Both?

--Dracula's origin in Eastern Europe--move to London (see West / East p. 7)

--America (and the Far [Wild] West)

--Is Morris a vampire? Why does he alone end up as he does ?

--Van Helsing's role?

--Seward and the asylum, Renfield. What are they doing in the novel?

Jane Eyre:

--the red room. Why is so important? Why does Jane remember it at key points during the course of the novel?

---reading, books. Jane as reader. How does Jane's reading prepare her to become an emancipated woman?

--reflections (mirrors), doubles

--Puns on names (Eyre, Burns, Lowood)

--landscapes as reflections of internal, psychological states

--dreams

--supernatural, telepathy, elves

--religion.

--first person narrative--the separation between Jane and Bronte (or lack thereof)

--India and colonialism, slavery in the West Indies. What is hte role of St. john and his sisters? of Rosemary?

--romance and equality? or romance as bondage and domination, sadomochism, and castration?

--murderous, mad, angry, rebellious, respectable, and castrating women. Jane and bertha. Are the two characters fully separated by the end of the novel or not?

--bird imagery

--social class, romance as upward social mobility

--secrets and servants

--images of imprisonment, literal imprisonment

--images of fire, bringing, literal burning, light (in contrast to ice, darkness, and so on)

--Do Jane and ochester want a marriage of equals? or do they struggle to take power over eahc oter in ways that might fairly be characterized as sado-masochistic How do ht various lieral and metaphorical images of bondage, impreisonment, and marriage work?

Paper Topics for Second paper.

Do not answer the questions below in order. They are meant to get you thinking , to formulate you own ideas, get you to ask questions of your own. By the same token, the page references I provide are not by any means exhaustive. They are to help you get started and to help you thikk concretely about the texts. So you'll need to define the topic for yourself and come up with a thesis of your own.

1. Gender and madness. You might want to consider Emily in "A Rose for Emily" or the governess in The Turn of the Screw as governess as instances of the female Gothic. Is Emily or the governess(es) mad? Why? What is the relation between gender, power(lessness), and madness for these women and other women we see in the story and novel). You might also think about these women characters as readers and as obsessive and excessive, even grotesque and perverse figures.

2. Masters. The role of the Master in The Turn of the Screw. In what does mastery consist? How is it related to interpretation? How are paranoia (surveillance), obsession, and power related? Is the story a joke?

3. Sexuality and monstrosity. Consider same sex relations between men and monstrosity in Frankenstein as well as in any of the film spin-offs we have considered. (If you want to examine a different film, please let me know.) Why is heterosexual pairing in the novel (V.F. and Elizabeth; the monster and his bride) disrupted by the relation by V. F. and the monster? Why can't V.F. make a mate for the monster? Is V.F. gay? How and why is the relation between the monster and V.F. an impediment to marriage and heterosexuality in the novel? You might want to consider hyperhetero readings of the novel as in K Branagh's film or gay readings of the novel in films such as Bride of Frankenstein, Warhol's Frankenstein, and Gods and Monsters. You might also consider how any of the film adaptations deal with sexuality, especially the Branagh version. (In other words, you may write on the novel and a film adaptation.) And you might also engage the feminist reading of the novel linking pregnancy, abortion, and creation. And you might also consider monstrosity and narrative structure in Frankenstein. And you might want to discuss Frankenhooker here.

4. Mourning, Mommy (Mummy), and reanimation in Frankenstein. What is the connection between mourning (Mom) and the desire to bring the dead back to life? You might want to consider the B film Re-animator.

5. Friendship and isolation in Frankenstein.

6. Doubling in Frankenstein: Shelley multiplies doubles in her novel. Walton is like VF; Shelley heself is like VF; Eliza is like the monster (killing people she doesn't mean to kill); and so on. Narrative structure and monstrosity.

7. The role of John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost in Frankenstein.

8. Colonial Gothic. India in TheTurn of the Screw (and in Jane Eyre, as well as the West Indies); Arabs and Turks in Frankenstein; (Turks and Central Europe in Dracula).

9. The centrality of missing mother and dead mothers in Gothic.

10. Shakespeare in Gothic literature. What is Shakespeare doing in Frankenstein, in The Castle of Otranto (and in Dracula, The Monk, and Jane Eyre)?

11. Narrative creation and human creation (birth) in Frankenstein. How are they analogous? Is Frankenstien a feminist novel?

12. Silence and not reading or telling as forms of power (male or female?) in "A Rose for Emily" and The Turn of the Screw.

 

For your first paper, I'd like you to write about some aspect of the Polanski in relation to Shakespeare's play.Your general thesis is already clear--Polanski darkens (metaphorically and sometimes, but not always, literally) the play whenever possile. You'll need to limit this general thesis to a particular aspect of the film. To this end, you may discuss how Polanski treats the supernatural, use of nudity and / or graphic violence, what he does with characters, what he adds (Duncan's murder occurs offstage, for example; Polanski shows it), what he cuts, camera angle, length of the shot, colors, the soundtrack (remember, it's by the Third Eye Band!) and so on (everything you discussed in your reports). For example, Ross is givben a much larger role int he film than he has in the play. Similarly, has some of you pointed out today, Banquo seems pretty bad too, opposing Macbeth not because he is loyal to Duncan but because he wants his own son on the throne. You can also connect the film to any of the questions I asked you to respond to for your short papers last Monday.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.