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Hon 230 Paper 1

Page history last edited by Eric Leonidas 5 years, 6 months ago

 

Hon 230: Close Reading Paper #1

 

Due: Tues, Sept 25

Length: 4-5 pages (minimum 4 full pages)

Must include a title, correct header, properly formatted parenthetical citations, and a Works Cited list

 

Topic:

 

The paper will argue that together our first pair of texts (Philoctetes and Blindness) offers a perspective on some common theme or idea. That theme will be drawn from a close reading of a passage in one of the two works, and your explication of the passage’s words and imagery will show us how the writer’s rhetorical choices form a perspective.

 

For instance, I might find a passage in one of the works that demonstrates or describes self-deception; my analysis will show that the passage says something sophisticated and complex about self-deception—it’s necessity or inevitability, or perhaps that it’s a consequence of a set of assumptions or biases. I might push for something counter-intuitive. Maybe the passage suggests the benefit or utility of self-deception, over and against cultural and moral imperatives to know ourselves.

 

Your paper will develop this “perspective” by presenting other places in the text where the theme or idea is at issue, closely reading those passages to show us new wrinkles or complications. Self-deception in the text may turn out to be socially damaging but personally useful, and therefore necessary in a particular place, or at a historical moment, or under a particular power arrangement.

 

You’ll also be using a second text in the pair, but you should think of the paper as primarily about one work. You might bring in—and closely read—a passage from the second text as a useful contrast: to show something about self-deception under different historical or cultural conditions. Alternatively, you might show a second text reinforcing your view that something about self-deception is regularly true (if not universally true—let’s avoid grand statements about humanity or the nature of things based on two fictional works!).  

 

Let me stress that much of your grade will depend on 1) advancing an argument that is something well beyond a description (Odysseus’ lies inflict pain on Philoctetes) or a moral or truism (Blindness reveals we are all basically animals); and 2) the closeness of your analysis of the literary language—the extent to which you pull individual words and phrases out of text you quote and explain their impact, complexity and resonance.

 

One last note about introductions: I’m a big fan of, “Sophocles’ tragedy Philoctetes….”  I am emphatically not a fan of, “Ancient Greece is known for its tragedies blah, blah, blah.”  It’s not unheard of to “write your way into” where you want to end up, but if you take that approach just go back and cut out all the fluff in front of what you really want to argue. I’m happy to help if you like.

 

I have other pet peeves.  Here are a few.

Here's a link about quotation and citation (from my Shakespeare class)

And here's the whole MLA shebang: formatting, in-text citation, works cited (use "Formatting and Style Guide," on the menu to the left)

 

An Example:

 

Last line of Blindness

  • Ambiguity: maybe blind, maybe not
  • Point (to me) is brief experience of blindness, wife's expectation that her responsibility is over and that now others will care for her

 

Might make a claim that the book is about the responsibility our suffering or disability puts on others, as well as the expectation of reciprocity.

  • Wife’s sense of responsibility: pretends to be blind (ambulance, asylum: short quotes)
  • Longer: her suffering in seeing the degradation
  • Allowing husband to sleep with Dark Glasses
  • Longest: her own weakness/guilt/need for help in “cellar” scene
  • Link to Philoctetes?
    • P's need for support
    • "Ambiguity" of end (really, demands on Neoptolemus are irreconcilable)

 

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