The Other Paper: Literary Analysis

Put Simply:

Select a theme, character, conflict, or concept in one of the stories or poems read in class, and write a 4 page analysis of that idea. Use quotes to support your ideas, including at least one quote from a critic or scholar of the piece you chose.

In Detail:

We’ve spoken at length about many passages from Henry James’ Washington Square, and have identified a number of themes within James’ subtle, almost coy, and–as described by critics in James’ time–”clever” scenes. We’ve looked at how a text can be “unpacked”: that is, closely read from sentence to sentence, breaking down these moments bit by bit and examining them for the greater elements of narrative that they speak to.

As readers and scholars, your assignment is to engage a story or poem discussed in class on a deeper level. You are not simply proving that there is a theme in Washington Square, or that symbolism exists in “The Jolly Corner”- that is granted. You are going further and examining the impact of the symbolism, the impact of the theme. You are carefully analyzing the subtleties within a text. Also, as scholars, your assignment is to be familiar with some of the scholarship on the author you chose to write about. For our purposes you will not need to be a professional historian on your author. You will, however, be required to quote a scholarly work on your author.

Where to start:

The introduction to our edition of Washington Square is meant to serve as an introduction to new readers of James, and to provide those more acquainted with James with a general understanding of the scholarship surrounding Washington Square. It also includes some in-depth analysis of various themes within the book. This is an example of superior writing on literature, and a great place to search for ideas and inspiration.

Example prompts:

1) How does Catherine Sloper’s relationship with her father evolve, and what are the implications in the novel?

2) How does the classic theme of romance get treated by James?

3) Morris Townsend’s relationship with Aunt Penniman seems a sketch of Morris’ relationship to women. Explain this.

4) The Doctor’s meeting with Mrs. Montgomery illustrates the Doctor’s relationship to Catherine and perhaps the world at large. How does the scene create this impact?

5) How do long paragraphs in James resolve?

6) How does H.P. Lovecraft incite fear in his readers?

7) Why does Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” remain an important poem today?

Identify a theme in Whitman’s poems and expand on it.

So…requirements:

1) Formatting
Your paper should include, in the following order:

Title Page

Content of the Paper (4 pages).

References Page

The paper should be written in APA formatting (page numbers, title page, etc.) with APA-style documentation of sources. It should be in 12 pt, Times New Roman font, with 1” margins on all sides, and double-spaced. The body of your paper should be no less than 4 pages (not including title and reference page).

2) At LEAST three quotes from the text that support your thesis.

a) Remember, you are selecting longer quotes to unpack piece by piece. Do not, as I have warned against, quote and move on. Take your time writing about your quotes.

3) At LEAST one quote from some literary scholarship or critical text on the piece you have selected.

c) You MAY NOT use Wikipedia as a source.

Late Papers

Late papers will be marked down for each meeting that they are late, as discussed on the first day of class. If your paper is going to be late for good reason then please e-mail me to let me know BEFORE the due date to discuss an extension. Explanations on the day the paper is due, or the day after, are not needed. Simply hand in the paper at the next class meeting.

EMAILED PAPERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED – NO EXCEPTIONS

Tips

-Take your time. This is your last paper, and counts for a large portion of your grade.

BE SPECIFIC. Select a specific idea (a specific relationship between characters, a specific character, a specific setting or scene) and create a concrete thesis.

REVISE! Egregious errors in spelling and grammar will effect a paper’s grade.

USE APA properly. At this point much attention has been given to this format, and it will effect your grade if you are way off format.

GOOD LUCK.

Writing About the Image – Jacob Riis Assignment

We’ve spoken at some length now about writing about an image. I’ve compared our approach to a Reader Response (only of your response to a painting, photograph, or film, not a reading). I’ve also asked you to write about a Jacob Riis image to bring in for our next meeting. (Click the link to look at the “Fire escape” image).  Remember, I’ve asked that you quote from Sante’s Low Life in your writing. This elevates your response- you become less of a passive spectator and more of an active analyst, able to bring meaning, information, and thoughtful analysis to your response- which increases your scholarly authority, and makes you sound smarter (if they’re not one and the same).

A couple other (more detailed) things about writing on the image:

It can be empowering to write about an image. In the world we live in, the depth and power of an image can be taken for granted by those who do not study and learn an appreciation of it. As audience members- passive spectators enjoying a film purely for the experience, not seeking greater comprehension, we may say “We liked it” or “It was boring”. As SCHOLARS, however, we seek a greater understanding of the work, and bring our outside knowledge and understanding of things like context, theme, intention to bear on our writing. This empowers us, and allows us more confidence in studying the world.

Images are intimidating. As I’ve made mention (too) many times, I’m a writer myself, and remember vividly my first attempts at writing about images. Writing about images intimidated me. Why? Because I was not confident in my immediate emotional response to them- I thought that that instinctive, reader-response-style reaction was limited and uneducated. Because of the great, extensive histories of art that I was only vaguely familiar with, and because of the people around me who seemed so eerily capable of taking it all in and spitting it back out with ease (I went to an art school.) But that instinctive response that we first have, whether it be our excitement at the fantasy of a painting or disgust at the brutality of a journalistic image, is intended by the artist (whether the artists wishes for your specific response is left to be questioned, but the artist is certainly soliciting a response, or they wouldn’t have shown you the work- they would have burned it), and therefore that instinctive response is useful to how we write about the image.

Describing an Image is an Opportunity to show what you think of an image.

Let me show you: The following is a sculpture of an HP Lovecraft monster.

Dagon from SOTA TOYS

The grotesque, brutally shaped maw of the beast seems fashioned of exposed flesh tightly wrapped over black bone- as if the creature might be in constant pain, and the tentacles, shiny and reptilian on the tops and translucent and fatty on the bottom, curl and slither upon themselves to chilling effect.

The points of articulation are well-hidden beneath the expertly-rendered joints of this awesome model. The open-faced maw and beady eyes effectively capture Lovecraft’s uniquely weird take on monsters. The painting of the model- from the effect of translucency on the skin to the pink, bony, crab-like hands, reflects only the most expert in craftsmanship.

See? I took each description as an opportunity to evoke a similar response in my reader that I had- this is what writing is all about.

Start with the image. It may seem simple, but what do you see? What is in the foreground, the background? How does the artist compose the image, color the image, and why? Note that you start by taking in the image passively, as a spectator, then ask the scholarly question, Why? And this takes you into the realm of speculation, of research, and of writing, hopefully.

Structure in Sante’s Low Life

In my own writing, I often find that I struggle the most with structure. I think the high school/middle school planning strategy of the “upside-down pyramid” can be helpful at first, but inevitably I come across the issue that I have much more information to share than the pyramid can bare. What is the pyramid for? What is organization for? Well, among other things, to create a scaffold for the building of a clear thesis.

Sante tells his reader up front, in his preface, how he will order his book on page xviii of Low Life by writing that “The book is organized into four sections. The first, “Landscape,” sets forth the lay of the land, the material conditions of housing and the look of the streets. The second, “Sporting Life,” concerns temptation and escapism…Within these sections are chapters, arranged according to broad and relatively obvious categories. These categories pertain to the city’s essential commonplaces…” Sante notes that he has a lot of information to share earlier, and now he describes for us just how he plans to dole out this dearth of material. Then he offers an insight into the symbolism of his structure, offering: “The categories can be seen as corresponding to cards in a Tarot deck of New York City…[or] the archetypal figures in a gambler’s dream book.” And Sante is offering us up the spine of one of his overarching themes: the snare, the lure, and how it runs through Low Life. Note how his major theme relates intrinsically to how he organizes his material.

Maintaining organization is one of the best ways to improve readability, and thus direct communication with your audience, and thus making accessible to the reader your thesis, your main idea. Adding a structure to your ideas is an effective way to maintain organization; a structure that your reader can readily recognize and say to herself: “Okay, first he’s gonna talk about this, then this, then this.”

As a writer, it is worth meditating on the question: “How will I structure this piece of writing? How do I maintain clarity? How do I keep the thesis alive even when I go a bit off-track from the main idea?”

One thing I say to myself as I write is: “Every sentence in this paper is meant to serve the thesis, or main topic, of this paper.” And then I go about asking myself of each sentence: “Is this serving the thesis? The general topic?” A lot of these questions can, and should, be asked in the act of revision (more on revision later). Without further ado, I hereby offer the floor to the class:

What strategies do you use in organizing and maintaining structure in a paper?*

I encourage you to look to what your other classmates (and whoever else choses to answer this question), for pointers, and I hope we may amass something of a list of effective strategies in writing a paper.

*You can comment by clicking “Comments” below.

Sante-Quoting

In Sante’s chapter “Home” in Low Life, Sante distinguishes one of his major themes in his first few sentences: the facade. Remember, the book is subtitled “Lures and Snares of Old New York.” and Sante deftly relates his chapter on impoverished living to his main subject.

Sante presents a grand, encompassing view of his subject, the tenement: “The tenement is the basic facade in New York, the face of the slums, a slab of tombstone proportions, four to six stories, pocked by windows. (pg. 23)” In this, the first sentence of his chapter, he has already cast his tenement in a negative light. Note how he compares the tenement facade to a tombstone, a pock. These descriptive words add to the the overall theme of decay and, well, low life living. Then Sante offers a glorious depiction of his tenement:

Above is the towering tin cornice, a confection of scallops and curlicues, with foliaceous brackets, often topped by a semicircular peak, a disk enclosing a rayed sun…The cornice exists in disdain of practical qualities…nit tjos function yield[s] to an aesthetic and the to a nearly heraldic role. It is the most conspicuous item in the tenement’s equipment of fictitious grandeur. (23)

This is prose in motion. Sante not only describes his main subject, but he makes his urgent point: it is all a lure. It is not really real, and as readers we can assume that he will explain exactly how horrible this building really is. Sante quilts his grand theme into the lush, specific detail of the world of Old New York. This is a careful art, one which can raise a piece of prose to an authoritative level of deftness that the reader is really drawn to, and which can lead to longer, deeper papers far more interesting to write and read.