Paper #2: The Birth of the Modern

If you missed class on Friday, here's the paper assignment I handed out in class. Note the due date--March 30th! 

English 3923

Paper #2: The Birth of the Modern

INTRO: Both Kafka’s stories and Soseki’s Kokoro were written as the nineteenth century faded into the twentieth, and both captured something uniquely ‘modern’ that we don’t see in Voltaire and Lermontov. Simply put, when we read these works, we could almost believe they were written today—or just yesterday, not a hundred years ago. Some combination of their characters, themes, stories, and philosophies would translate well into a modern book or film…and probably has, in one way or another!

PROMPT: For this paper, I want you to find a modern work of art (book, film, show, panting, even an album) that you feel is the spiritual descendant of Kafka or Soseki’s work. Why can we trace many of the ideas and characters of this work back to, say, “The Metamorphosis” or Kokoro? Choose ONE of the two books to focus on, though in Kafka’s case, you can do more than one story. Explain how the more recent work seems to borrow, adapt, expand, or echo the themes in the earlier work, and use the newer work to explain what makes Kafka or Soseki so ‘modern.’ Don’t just do a compare and contrast, though: use the modern work as a lens to examine Kafka or Soseki’s book.

REMEMBER: your audience might not know the more recent work, so be sure to introduce it in enough detail so we can follow along and appreciate the connection. Quote/examine the newer work alongside passages and ideas from Kafka or Soseki. The more we have to guess, the less effective your paper will be. Help us appreciate both works, and understand how one was indebted to the other for its very existence.

REQUIREMENTS:

• No page limit, but use both works in your discussion
• You must QUOTE from the works and discuss specific passages to make your points; don’t just summarize or generalize
• CONTEXT: make sure we understand what story/novel you’re discussing from class, and make sure we understand the general story or background of your modern work
• DUE Wednesday, March 30^th by 5pm!