【文讀assignment #2】Love and Death in Emily Dickinson, John Donne, and Andrew Marvell (deadline: 6/13)

Write an essay (250-300 words) based on the following question:

If there exist some common motifs among Dickinson, Donne, and Marvell, they must be love and death. Obsessed with death, these poets use different ways to depict their relationship with the Grim Reaper. Besides death, love (be it religious or secular) is another recurrent theme of these three poets. Among the poems we discussed so far, pick one to analyze any of these themes. Or you can compare two or even three poets' different strategies (i.e. metaphysical conceits, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification, etc.) to approach these themes. Explain why you think these strategies are ingenious and unconventional.

【文讀Assignment #1】Family: An Album (deadline: 4/14)

Write an essay (250-300 words) based on ONE of the following questions:

1.  Compare the portrayal of the parent-child relationship in any two poems in our week 7’s readings, focusing especially on the poems’ tones and themes.
2. What words in Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” suggest the son’s feelings toward his father and his home? What words indicate that his attitudes have changed since the time depicted in the poem? Write an essay in which you compare the speaker’s feelings, as a youth and then later as a man, about his father and his home.
3. Kelly Cherry’s “Alzheimer’s” uses contrasts—especially before and after—to characterize the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease. What evidence does the poem provide about what the man used to be like? What specific changes have come about? How does the setting of the poem suggest some of those changes?
4. Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “Green Chile” uses different chiles to symbolize different generations’ attitudes toward Mexican culture. What different qualities do the red and green chiles have? Which words in the poem help personify the chiles? How fully do these words reflect the differences between the speaker and the grandmother?

【文讀assignment #2】Flannery O'Connor's violent epiphanies (deadline: 1/9/2016)

In her short stories, Flannery O’Connor brings her characters to a moment of epiphany when it is no longer possible for them to return to the old ways of life.The proud are humbled, the ignorant are enlightened, and the hypocritical are forced to recognize that the discrepancy between their smug surface and its hollow spirituality is the proof of their inadequacy in the eyes of God.  For O’Connor, this epiphanal moment can only be achieved by violence and destruction: “In my own stories I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace….  We hear many complaints about the prevalence of violence in modern fiction, and it is always assumed that this violence is a bad thing and meant to be an end in itself.  With the serious writer, violence is never an end in itself.  It is the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially” (“On Her Own Work”).

In the three stories we read (“A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” “Good Country People,” “Everything That Rises Must Converge”), can you find any “moments of epiphany” which are produced in extreme violent situations? How do these violent situations “reveal” the hidden message of God? What mysterious transformations have the characters undergone when they are shocked into an awareness of their smug ignorance? Write an essay of 250-300 words. 

【文讀】assignment 1: deadline (10/31)

Write an essay (250-300 words) based on ONE of the following questions:

1. In Anton Chekhov'e "The Lady with the Dog," what is Gurov's attitude toward his affair with Anna at the outset? What is Anna's attitude? What are some indications that both Gurov and Anna are unprepared for the relationship that develops between them?
2. in James Joyce's "Araby," how do the first three paragraphs characterize the environment in which the narrator lives?
3. Discuss the denotation and connotations of the word "fever" in Edith Wharton's short story. How do these layers of connotation contribute to the theme of the story?
4. In "A Jury of Her Peers," Mrs. Peters is "married to the law" (in the form of her husband the sheriff), whereas Mrs. Hale is married to the farmer who first discovered the murder. In what ways, including dress, speech and manners, action, and attitude, are the two visiting women alike or different? In what ways do they identify with or distance themselves from the absent wife, Mrs. Wright? How and why do the men and women take sides separately or together?
5. In your experience of reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birth-Mark," do you think that Aylmer's actions are justifiable? Do you admire or disapprove of him? What main ideas--themes--does the author explore? 

**** Pay attention to the word count. Late submission within 7 days will receive the 90% discount of grade. Late submission beyond 7 days and less than minimum word count will receive no grade. 

【文讀assignment #2】Love and Death in Emily Dickinson, John Donne, and Andrew Marvell (deadline: 6/13)

Love and Death, by Hans Baldung Grien (c.1484-1545) 

Write an essay (250-300 words) based on the following question:

If there exist some common motifs among Dickinson, Donne, and Marvell, they must be love and death. Obsessed with death, these poets use different ways to depict their relationship with the Grim Reaper. Besides death, love (be it religious or secular) is another recurrent theme of these three poets. Among the poems we discussed so far, pick one to analyze any of these themes. Or you can compare two or even three poets' different strategies (i.e. metaphysical conceits, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification, etc.) to approach these themes. Explain why you think these strategies are ingenious and unconventional.

【英史assignment #3】Sylvia Townsend Warner's Mr. Fortune's Maggot (deadline: 6/3)

Write an essay (250-300 words) based on ONE of the following questions:

   1)   Discuss Sylvia Townsend Warner’s ingenious use of “failure” as an alternative way of thinking that is linked to an awareness of racial and religious “difference.” How can a story of a loser be a critique of Christian imperialism or European colonialism?

   2)   As a lesbian writer, Sylvia Townsend Warner intentionally subverts the conventional gender norms and stereotypes by creating queer characters whose gender ambiguities defy traditional gender expectations. Discuss Mr. Fortune and Leuli’s gender ambiguity in the novel. How does their gender ambiguity open up a possibility that the world can be different (from the existing patriarchal society)?

【英史assignment #2】Heart of Darkness & The Hours (deadline: 5/4)

Write an essay (250-300 words) based on ONE of the following questions:

1. In Heart of Darkness, what does Kurtz represent to Marlow? Why does Marlow want to meet Kurtz? What does Marlow learn from his meeting with Kurtz?

2. Discuss Heart of Darkness as a quest narrative. In what way is this a journey into the self? What does it mean to enouncter the "heart of darkness?" How do the African people and landscape reflect Marlow's state of mind?

3. In the movie The Hours (adapted from Michael Cunningham's 1999 Pulitzer-winning novel of the same name), the lives of three women of different generations are interwoven with one another. Inspired by Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Cunningham creates characters whose characteristics and traits are drawn from the major characters in Mrs. Dalloway. Discuss the major characters in The Hours. How are they different from or similar with the characters in Mrs. Dalloway?

4. If one of the themes of Mrs. Dalloway is about guarding the privacy of one's soul against the violation of institutional violence (be it love in the form of normative marriage, religion, medical-psychiatric institutions, militarism, etc.), how is this theme explored in The Hours?

【文讀assignment #1】Family: An Album (deadline: 4/24)

Write an essay (250-300 words) based on ONE of the following questions:

1.  Compare the portrayal of the parent-child relationship in any two poems in our week 8’s readings, focusing especially on the poems’ tones and themes.
2. What words in Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” suggest the son’s feelings toward his father and his home? What words indicate that his attitudes have changed since the time depicted in the poem? Write an essay in which you compare the speaker’s feelings, as a youth and then later as a man, about his father and his home.
3. Kelly Cherry’s “Alzheimer’s” uses contrasts—especially before and after—to characterize the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease. What evidence does the poem provide about what the man used to be like? What specific changes have come about? How does the setting of the poem suggest some of those changes?
4. Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “Green Chile” uses different chiles to symbolize different generations’ attitudes toward Mexican culture. What different qualities do the red and green chiles have? Which words in the poem help personify the chiles? How fully do these words reflect the differences between the speaker and the grandmother?

【英史assignment #1】The Picture of Dorian Gray (deadline: 4/20)

Discuss the differences between Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and the 2009 movie adaptation of the novel. How are they different? Which version has the most impact upon you or appeals to you the most? Why? Write an essay of 250-300 words.

Assignment # 3: Flannery O'Connor's violent epiphany (deadline 1/4/2016)

In her short stories, Flannery O’Connor brings her characters to a moment of epiphany when it is no longer possible for them to return to the old ways of life.The proud are humbled, the ignorant are enlightened, and the hypocritical are forced to recognize that the discrepancy between their smug surface and its hollow spirituality is the proof of their inadequacy in the eyes of God.  For O’Connor, this epiphanal moment can only be achieved by violence and destruction: “In my own stories I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace….  We hear many complaints about the prevalence of violence in modern fiction, and it is always assumed that this violence is a bad thing and meant to be an end in itself.  With the serious writer, violence is never an end in itself.  It is the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially” (“On Her Own Work”).

In the three stories we read (“A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” “Good Country People,” “Everything That Rises Must Converge”), can you find any “moments of epiphany” which are produced in extreme violent situations? How do these violent situations “reveal” the hidden message of God? What mysterious transformations have the characters undergone when they are shocked into an awareness of their smug ignorance? Write an essay of 250-300 words. 

Assignment # 2: Compare and Contrast: (deadline: 12/8)

Write an essay (250-300 words) based on ONE of the following questions:

1. “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) and “The Story of an Hour” (1891) were written during the transitional period in which issues of women’s civil rights and suffrage were hotly debated and women’s access to higher education and entrance to careers outside of domestic work demanded. These two stories provide valuable insights into the predicaments of married middle-class white women in the late 19th-century America. Compare and contrast these two stories and their similar or different ways of protesting against the limited and constraining roles allotted to women during that time. Why do both two stories take place inside a house, and almost entirely within one room of that house? Why do “patches of blue sky” or gazing out a window play a significant part in the action? 
2. Alienation is the theme of both “A Hunger Artist” and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.” Compare and contrast these two stories; examine the details that describe the two protagonists’ loneliness and frustration; their futile interactions with the people that surround them. Why is the panther more popular than the hunger artist? Similarly, why does the spider girl “defeat” the “haughty angel who scarcely deigned to look at mortals”? If these two stories are allegorical, what kind of message do these two authors want to deliver to their readers?  

Assignment #1: Maupassant, Poe, Wharton, and Hemingway (deadline: 10/16)

Write an essay (250-300 words) based on ONE of the following questions; cite relevant texts to prove your points:

1. The ultimate irony of Maupassant's "The Jewelry" comes at the end of the story. Once the secret of Madame Lantin's jewelry is revealed, what details from earlier in the story take on a different significance?
2. "The Cask of Amontillado" is a chilling story, but Poe uses humorous elements as Montresor recounts his experience with Fortunato. Discuss Poe's use of irony and black humor in the story. 
3. Write an essay that compares and contrasts the differences (e.g. personalities, lives, facial features, opinions about their daughters, etc.) of Alida Slade and Grace Ansley in Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever."
4. Find the first indication in "Hills Like White Elephants" that the two main characters are not getting along. What is the first clue about the exact nature of their conflict? Why are they going to Madrid? Why do the characters refrain from speaking about it explicitly?

Postcolonial Voices: (deadline: 6/17)

Write an essay (250-300 words) based on ONE of the following questions; cite relevant texts to prove your points:

1. In Katherine Mansfield's "Garden Party," what do we learn about Laura when she talks to the workmen about the placement of the marquee? How sure of herself is she? How does she demonstrate confused feelings toward the workmen? Describe Laura's thoughts and feelings when she visits the Scott family and views the corpse. Why does Laura think Scott's dead body is "wonderful, beautiful"? What has Laura learned by the end of the story?
2. In Jean Rhys's "The Day They Burned the Books," why does Eddie say that he doesn't like daffodils? What do these flowers mean to both Eddie and the young narrator? How do they both feel about the English--and why? What do Mr. Sawyer's books represent to Mrs. Sawyer? Why does she want to destroy them?
3. In Alice Munro's "Walker Brothers Cowboy," what is the narrator's attitude toward Nora? Compare her description of Nora with her description of her mother. How does our view of the father change when he visits Nora? How does the narrator's view change? Does she feel estrangement or a greater sense of fellowship?
4. In Margaret Atwood's "Death by Landscape," referring to Lois's collection of paintings of the Canadian wilderness, the narrator says, "Looking at them fills her with a wordless unease." What makes Lois uneasy? What is her relationship to nature? Why is she both drawn to and repelled by nature? What does she see in the paintings?

Mrs. Dalloway (deadline: 4/17)

Write an essay (250-300 words) based on ONE of the following questions; cite relevant texts to prove your points:

1. At one point we learn that "[Septimus] went to France to save an England which consisted almost entirely of Shakespeare's plays and Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress walking in a square" (1156). What does this suggest about Septimus's social and political views before he goes to war? In what way might these views have come into conflict with the realities of war that Septimus faced? How are notions of war, empire, and masculinity connected in Mrs. Dalloway?

2. Why does Septimus view Dr. Holmes and Sir William Bradshaw with distrust and even hostility?In what way does the creation of Septimus serve as Woolf's critique of the dominant ideology of British empire, its promotion of macho masculinity, the cult of the hero, and the subordination of women?

3. Woolf creates three incidents in Mrs. Dalloway to unify the otherwise disconnected and fluid thoughts of those passers-by: the motor car scene, the skywriting episode, and the beggar woman singing opposite Regent's Park Tube station. What are their significances? What types of thoughts go through people's minds when they witness these three incidents? What kind of symbolic meaning does each incident have?     

Heart of Darkness (deadline: 3/27)

Write an essay (250-300 words) based on ONE of the following questions; cite relevant texts to prove your points:

1. How is Brussels portrayed in Heart of Darkness? What kinds of imagery define the city? What does the description of the Company's people hint at Marlow's forthcoming journey into the jungle?
2. Compare the description of Kurtz's "Intended" (1054-7) with the description of his African mistress (1044). What role does each woman serve in the narrative? Why does Marlow lie to Kurtz's "Intended" and tell her that "The last word [Kurtz] pronounced was--your name"?

"In the outer room the two women knitted black wool feverishly" (1005).

"They were dying slowly--it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now--nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom" (1010).

*drawings courtesy Catherine Aanyango

Postcolonial Voices: Nadine Gordimer, Derek Walcott, and Zadie Smith (deadline: 6/22)

Answer ONE of the following questions with 200-250 words; cite relevant texts to prove your point:

Source: http://african.culturextourism.com/introducing-south-african-arts-crafts/

1. ("The Moment before the Gun Went Off") What do you make of the fact that Lucas's mother is the daughter of parents who worked for the elder Van der Vyver?Although the story does not give us the details of the intimate relationship between the mother and Marais Van der Vyver, how might she describe it?

2. In "A Far Cry from Africa," what is the speaker's attitude toward colonial and anti-colonial violence? Does he condemn one side more than the other?

3. In "The Waiter's Wife," why does Samad wish that he could wear a sign around his neck that reads: "I AM NOT A WAITER. THAT IS, I AM A WAITER, BUT NOT JUST A WAITER"? What does this tell us about Samad, his past, and his adjustment to life in London? 

Voices from New Zealand, Dominica, and Canada (deadline: 6/3)

Answer ONE of the following questions with 200-250 words; cite relevant texts to prove your point:

Tom Thomsons, "Sunset," 1915, National Gallery of Canada

1) What does Katherine Mansfield's "The Garden Party" tell us about class relations?

2) In Jean Rhys's "The Day They Burned the Books," daffodils and strawberries are loaded with symbolic meanings. What are they? Why does Eddie say that he doesn't like daffodils? What do these flowers mean to both Eddie and the young narrator? How do they both feel about the English, and why?

3) What is the narrator's attitude toward Nora ( in Munro's "Walker Brothers Cowboy")

? Compare her description of Nora with her description of her mother.

4) Referring to Lois's collection of painting of the Canadian wilderness, the narrator in Atwood's "Death by Landscape" says, "Looking at them fills her with a wordless unease." What makes Lois uneasy? What is her relationship to nature? Why is she both drawn to and repelled by nature? What does she see in the paintings?

James Joyce and D. H. Lawrence (deadline: 5/15)

"Chrysanthemums," Claude Monet (1897)

Answer ONE of the following questions with 200-250 words; cite relevant texts to prove your point:

1) How does "Araby" convey a sense of desolation and gloom? What words, symbols, and motifs contribute to this atmosphere? Is the narrator's despair at the end of "Araby" confined to his frustration with the bazaar itself or does it extend to larger issues?




2) In "The Dead," what do Gabriel's thoughts about and interactions with other people tell us about his character? What words would you use to describe him? How comfortable is he with himself and with the world?

3) Describing Elizabeth, the narrator of "Odour of Chrysanthemums" says, "She was grateful to death, which restored the truth. And she knew she was not dead"(1279). What "truth" does Elizabeth discover?

4) Lawrence's fiction often concerns a relentless struggle for possession and dominance between men and women. How does this theme play out in "The Horse Dealer's Daughter"?

BBC radio 4: Heart of Darkness

In this BBC radio broadcast, Melvyn Bragg discusses Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Written in 1899, Heart of Darkness is a fascinating fin de siecle critique of colonialism and man's greed. Conrad draws on his own adventures for the plot. The story's main narrator is Marlow, a merchant seaman who pilots a steamship upriver in what is largely assumed to be the Belgian Congo. He finds the scramble for Africa well underway, with Europeans desperately competing to make their fortunes from ivory. Marlow's journey takes him into the interior of this mysterious silent continent. After a dangerous passage he finally arrives at the company's most remote trading station. It is reigned over by Kurtz, a white man who seems to have become a kind of God figure to the local people. Marlow is fascinated by him, preferring his messianic ravings to the petty treachery and mercenarism of the other white traders. On the journey back, Kurtz dies, whispering “the horror, the horror”.

The interpretation of these words has perplexed readers ever since and the book has prompted a diverse range of readings from the psychoanalytical, that sees the novella as a metaphor for the journey into the subconscious, to feminist readings that examine how Conrad excludes female characters and focuses on the male consciousness.

Conrad wrote; “My task is, above all, to make you see”. So did he intend this novella to provoke a discussion of the immorality and rapacity at the centre of colonialism? Was he questioning the hero's welcome given to those famous explorers who came back from “civilising” Africa, as they saw it? Or was he, as the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe put it, “guilty of preposterous and perverse arrogance in reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind?

With Susan Jones, Fellow and Tutor in English at St Hilda's College, Oxford;

Robert Hampson, Professor of Modern Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London; Laurence Davies, Honorary Senior Research Fellow in English at Glasgow University and Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire 

Questions for Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (deadline: 3/19)

Answer one of the following questions with 200-250 words, cite relevant examples to prove your points:

     1) What does Kurtz represent to Marlow? Why does Marlow want to meet Kurtz? What does Marlow learn from his meeting with Kurtz?

      2) Explore the concept of “savagery” in this story. Who and what constitutes savagery? What does it mean to be civilized?

      3) Discuss Heart of Darkness as a quest narrative. In what way is this a journey into the self? What does it mean to encounter the “heart of darkness”? How do the African people and landscape reflect Marlow’s state of mind?