Essay 5 Due Monday (2/1) and Tuesday (2/2)

The directions for Essay 5, which is due on Monday, February 1 (Day 3), and Tuesday, February 2 (Day 4), are posted to the right.

If you have trouble developing your own topic, please see me or get in touch with me.

Prompts for In-Class Essay Thursday and Friday

For Thursday and Friday, you need to finish reading and annotating your book for the final paper. On Thursday and Friday, you will write an essay in class about your book. You will have forty minutes to complete the essay. Below, and posted to the right, are five topics to think about for this essay. On the day of the essay, I will give you two of these topics, and you will write about one of them.

Character. Describe the protagonist's central preoccupation, and both explain how he or she tries to achieve it, and why he or she can or cannot achieve it. What stands in the protagonist's way? Does the protagonist change his or her attitude toward this preoccupation? How does the protagonist's attitude toward this central preoccupation reflect an essential quality about him or her?

Plot. Describe the climax of your book and explain how it relates to the central conflict. Be sure to mention where in your book the climax takes place (close to the beginning? toward the end? in the middle?), and whether that gives sufficient space for the conflict to develop and to be resolved.

Conflict. Explain how the central conflict in your book both advances the plot and contributes to the protagonist's development as a character. Be sure to identify the force or character that opposes the protagonist.

Narrative tone and point of view. Analyze the ways the narrative voice and point of view of your book are appropriate for one of its themes. For example, if your book's narrator is ironic, how does that tone reinforce one of its themes? Or, if the narrative tone is nostalgic, how does that sense of nostalgia help you understand one of the book's themes?

The whole text. Does your book, as a whole, work? Address this question by explaining how three of the elements of fiction come together, or fail to come together, in your book. It may be helpful to take apart your selected elements of fiction and put them back together again.

Homework for Wednesday and Thursday

You will not have an essay due next week. Instead, write one typed page in response to the following prompt:

Stevenson wrote Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde during a very conservative time period. In Victorian England, respectable men and women had strict standards of behavior. Compared to Stevenson's, however, our society is open-minded, permissive, and tolerant. Given our tolerance for all sorts of behavior and lifestyles that were once forbidden, is Stevenson's novel still relevant today?

Jekyll and Hyde

Here is the link to the floor plan of Henry Jekyll's house that I showed in class:

http://jacinet.johnabbott.qc.ca/webpages/departments/english/trecartin/jekyllfloorplan.htm

This floor plan is not quite accurate as it does not indicate the windows that can be seen from the courtyard. (Of lesser importance, the illustrator rotated the house 180 degrees from the first to the second illustrations, but did not adjust the compass directions.)

Here is the link to the Jekyll and Hyde book available through Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=s4A1AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Although the page numbers do not match those of our edition, the search function might be helpful to finding certain words or scenes.

Homework Reminder

Remember that from now on, you only have to annotate the homework reading closely or write a journal entry. This does not apply to your book for the final paper, which you must annotate (no journal entries for that).