No questions for Wednesday. Instead, catch up on "Princess Mary" if you haven't finished it, and read the very short story, "The Fatalist" for Wednesday. In class, I'll give you an in-class writing prompt (Writing Exam #2) based on "The Fatalist," though it will ask you to apply this to the rest of the book as well. Bring your book so you can quote from it and show your profound knowledge of the events of the story!
Make sure, too, that you have our next book, Kafka's Complete Stories, since we'll be starting that before long. Check out the Revised Schedule (below) to see how I changed a few dates based on our Snow Day.
ALSO: The Paper #1 is pasted below with the revised due date:
Paper #1: Portraits of Caustic Truth
In the Narrator’s Preface to A Hero of Our Time, he writes that the novel “is indeed a portrait, but not of a single individual; it is a portrait composed of all the vices of our generation in the fullness of their development…[people] need some bitter medicine, some caustic truths…Suffice it that the disease has been pointed out; goodness knows how to cure it.”
While the Preface could itself be a bit satirical,
Lermontov seems to have the same general aim as Voltaire, who in Candide is depicting the “vices of [his] generation”
through “some caustic truths.” Surprisingly, both novels are almost unanimous
in how these “truths” are depicted, as the same types of characters appear
quite frequently, even though one work was published in 1759, and the other in
1840. Had society changed so little in 81 years? Has it ever changed?
For your first paper, I want you to put both works in
conversation with each other to answer the question, what does each author
believe is the general vice or symptom of their respective societies? What
are the “caustic truths” that society ignores or hides from which only
literature can reveal? And what is the “bitter medicine” each work prescribes
to society? Do you feel that they generally agree on the symptoms and the mode
of treatment? Or might they each object to the others’ cure? Look for
similarities and shared approaches between both works, but don’t ignore shades
of difference. Is there something a Russian soldier would notice that would
escape a French philosopher?
REQUIREMENTS
- Be
FOCUSED and try to narrow your ideas down to a specific topic or idea:
don’t talk about every problem each work explores, and don’t just
compare and contrast the books. Take a focused and critical approach to
each book.
- QUOTE
significant passages from both books and discuss them. Make sure we
understand why you quoted the passage and what it says about the novel.
- Use
CONTEXT for each passage and cite according to MLA guidelines (typically,
the page number of the passage). Make sure we know where the quote comes
from, who’s speaking, etc. Don’t use ‘floating quotes.’
- No
set number of pages, but the less you explain/explore, the less effective
your paper will be. I would say generally that 1-2 pages isn’t going to
cut it, but beyond that, it’s up to you. Just try to have fun exploring
the ideas and tell me what you see and what you thought as
you read both novels.
- DUE Monday, February 14th by
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