TOPICS FOR THE SECOND PAPER, ENGLISH 258, SPRING 2013

Choose one of the topics below as the basis for a 6-7  page double-spaced essay.  This is not a research paper; rather, a piece of writing in which you consider an issue from your own point of view.  Please do not use resources other than texts for the course (except for factual information, if you need to). 

It will be important to illustrate the points you wish to make by paraphrasing or quoting lines or passages from the texts.  If you are unsure how to cite the source of a quotation, there’s a good simple guide online: http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocMLA.html

Papers about literary works follow the format of the Modern Language Association (MLA) Handbook.

I.  The environment topic from the first essay.  Three texts, two of which must be from the second half of the semester.

II.  We talked on the first day about idea of a “Final Narrative,” which is explained as follows: “All human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their lives.  These are the words in which we formulate praise for our friends and contempt for our enemies, our long-term projects, our deepest self-doubts and our highest hopes.  They are the words in which we tell . . . the story of our lives.”  The notion presented by Mark Edmundson is that a liberal arts education will encourage you to use major works of art and intellect to help develop your Final Narrative.

Briefly explain what your Final Narrative is.  Have you found materials to incorporate in it in any of the reading so far, or do you define yourself in opposition to the works we’ve read?  If you choose this topic, you may need to separate out elements of your F.N. so that you can discuss at least three works (one of them can be a text you wrote about earlier, but two must be from the second half of the semester). You must be careful to give substantial attention to the texts as well as to your own beliefs.

III.  Growing up in the United States, most of us, most of the time, occupy a landscape of safety. Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness describes this as a place of “solid pavement” and “kind neighbors” and the ordinary shopkeeper and the reliable policeman.  Conrad’s book suggests that we are usually kept within this landscape by fears of various kinds—fear of scandal (if we were to do something that might embarrass us), fear of punishment (if we were to commit a crime), fear of confinement for insanity (if we were to let our darkest thoughts have rein).

But one of the functions of many literary works is to try to help us imagine what it might feel like to step off the pavement, to quell fear for a little while, to enter a world where our feet are free to go where they like.  Kafka famously said, “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? . . . A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.”

Write a paper in which you speculate about how that could happen in relation to three of the texts we’ve studied this semester.  You can revisit one of the texts you’ve already written about for the first paper, but at least two of the works should be from the second half of the semester.  In particular, try to imagine where exactly your freed feet might take you, if you listened to the suggestions contained in these books.  Show how your chosen texts invite you off the pavement, so to speak.  And you might also show how they, eventually, try to get you back onto the pavement (if you think they do).

Due on May 2.  Grading criteria:

                Essay exhibits comprehensive understanding of the texts it analyzes.

                Essay clearly and seriously addresses one of the topics.

                Essay is well organized and engagingly written.

                Essay exhibits correct use of grammatical, usage, and citation conventions