For your final assignment, you will pick
oneof the following prompts and compose a 5-page short essay (
1250 words minimum). As a formal analytical essay, your paper must have a
convincingthesis statement, proper
topic sentencesand
developed paragraphs, supportive
textual evidence, and
critical analysisof said evidence.
PROMPT 1: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF A SINGLE LITERARY ELEMENT
Chooseoneof our literary elements covered in the first eight weeks of class. [See complete list at the end of document.]Make an argument about how and why either Ishiguro or DeLillo deploys this literary element, and defend your claim by using the opposite author as a contrasting example.Questions to address: How are these two writers using the element of your choice to shape the form of their novels, and how does this element contribute to the larger themes of each? You will need to provide specific textual evidence (through direct quotationsandcritical analysis of those quotations) fromboth
A Pale View of HillsandThe Body Artist. How are the elements being used similarly, and more importantly, how are they being put to different ends? How does this element help support your reading of these two novels?
PROMPT 2: IRONY AND IMAGERY INA PALE VIEW OF HILLS
Verbal irony, as we learned, often describes the discrepancy between what a character says and what they actually believe to be true. Imagery contributes significantly to understanding characters and setting, particularly when told from a first-person perspective.Write an argument about how verbal irony and imagery function withinA Pale View of Hillsto reveal somethingindirectlyabout Etsuko, as well as the larger significance of how the past haunts her present.Be sure you have a central claim at the end of your introduction that explicitly addresses these points. Irony becomes especially important and interesting in Ishiguro’s narrative because of how the reader is given access to what Etsuko saysto herself, subtly gesturing toward how she’s perhaps telling herself small lies to cope with the past. In terms of imagery, you may choose whatever you’d like, but some key images to consider include rope and/or the wasteground.
PROMPT 3: THE FORM OF CONTENT: GHOST STORIES AND WILLFUL FORGETTING
There’s an argument to be made that, to a certain extent,A Pale View of HillsandThe Body Artisttell the same tale. What differs between them, from this perspective, isn’t their content but their form --howeach novelist has writtenwhatthey’ve written. Both novels use the conventions of the ghost story in unusual and innovative ways to explore much larger themes. These include the role of fiction in how individuals and even entire societies “remember” the darker moments of history, and how both individuals and entire societies “willfully forget” their most traumatic moments of grief. And yet, at the same time, some also reclaim this trauma by “performing” it in an indirect way. We could say, for example, that these two novels aren’t “really” ghost stories at all, but instead using the medium of the ghost story to allow us to approach something deeply upsetting in the past that couldn’t be endured otherwise, or vocalized in a direct manner.Write a comparative analysis of how Ishiguro and DeLillo use the form of the ghost story to address much bigger themes, such as grief, willful forgetting, or a theme of your choice.You will need to provide specific textual evidence (through direct quotationsandcritical analysis of those quotations) fromboth
A Pale View of HillsandThe Body Artist.