The First Quarter Short Story Essay
Guinan/AP Lit
First Quarter Story Analysis Essay.
Read the stories on the Run Down. Then write a 500 word analysis of a story of your choice. You may take a variety of approaches, perhaps one inspired by our Literary Theory Unit. You may also use one of the below questions as a basis for your essay.
1. For the Magic Barrel and/or Conversion of the Jews: Compare and contrast those themes that are particular to Jewish culture and religion and those that are "universal"; i.e. which texts relate themes that are unique/singular to the Jewish experience, and which texts relate experiences shared by everyone?
2. For Conversion of the Jews: the 2008 Free Response Question: In some works of literature, childhood and adolescence are portrayed as times graced by innocence and a sense of wonder; in other works, they are depicted as times of tribulation and terror. Focusing on a single novel or play(that is, Conversion of the Jews), explain how its representation of childhood or adolescence shapes the meaning of the work as a whole.
3. For the Shawl: First explain what Theodor Adorno meant when he said, "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." Explain how the ambivalence/tension of making art out of the Holocaust in expressed in the story "The Shawl.”
4. Write an essay on your reading of the Shawl that follows the following thesis:"Ozick's use of imagery and figurative language throughout the story expresses the tension created by the extreme nature of the subject matter."
Hint: your essay can use, if necessary, the following sentence:
...the reader is situated within a series of experiences so horrifying that they resist conventional language. Ozick's extensive use of figurative language suggests the desperation of a mind (both Rosa's and that of the implied narrator) striving to make sense of a bleak world...
...Magda's eyes are called "blue tigers," her legs are called "scribbling pencils"..."ash-stippled wind"..."Magdas mouth was spilling a vicious rope of clamour."
etc.
5. Consider a feminist analysis of "Rape Fantasies" that suggests that the narrator both complies to and resists traditional gender roles when faced with the issue of male dominance and aggression.
6. For Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” : Write an essay in which you explore and explain the multiple levels of the metaphor of blindness in this story.
7. Discuss the cultural mythologies evident in the story "Chixcilub". How is the story a myth of suburban fears? How are the plot and characters archtypical?
First Quarter Story Analysis Essay.
Read the stories on the Run Down. Then write a 500 word analysis of a story of your choice. You may take a variety of approaches, perhaps one inspired by our Literary Theory Unit. You may also use one of the below questions as a basis for your essay.
1. For the Magic Barrel and/or Conversion of the Jews: Compare and contrast those themes that are particular to Jewish culture and religion and those that are "universal"; i.e. which texts relate themes that are unique/singular to the Jewish experience, and which texts relate experiences shared by everyone?
2. For Conversion of the Jews: the 2008 Free Response Question: In some works of literature, childhood and adolescence are portrayed as times graced by innocence and a sense of wonder; in other works, they are depicted as times of tribulation and terror. Focusing on a single novel or play(that is, Conversion of the Jews), explain how its representation of childhood or adolescence shapes the meaning of the work as a whole.
3. For the Shawl: First explain what Theodor Adorno meant when he said, "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." Explain how the ambivalence/tension of making art out of the Holocaust in expressed in the story "The Shawl.”
4. Write an essay on your reading of the Shawl that follows the following thesis:"Ozick's use of imagery and figurative language throughout the story expresses the tension created by the extreme nature of the subject matter."
Hint: your essay can use, if necessary, the following sentence:
...the reader is situated within a series of experiences so horrifying that they resist conventional language. Ozick's extensive use of figurative language suggests the desperation of a mind (both Rosa's and that of the implied narrator) striving to make sense of a bleak world...
...Magda's eyes are called "blue tigers," her legs are called "scribbling pencils"..."ash-stippled wind"..."Magdas mouth was spilling a vicious rope of clamour."
etc.
5. Consider a feminist analysis of "Rape Fantasies" that suggests that the narrator both complies to and resists traditional gender roles when faced with the issue of male dominance and aggression.
6. For Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” : Write an essay in which you explore and explain the multiple levels of the metaphor of blindness in this story.
7. Discuss the cultural mythologies evident in the story "Chixcilub". How is the story a myth of suburban fears? How are the plot and characters archtypical?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)