Topics for Second Paper

Each of the topics below requires you to interpret one of the books from the second half of the class (Slaughterhouse-Five, Ariel, or The Edible Woman) while maintaining a persona as a character from the book. Depending on which character you choose, this could involve a somewhat tricky balancing act: some characters would presumably misunderstand the book, yet you somehow have to show what the book really means while remaining in character. If you are a fan of Stephen Colbert, or for that matter if you enjoy irony in any media, you know that it is quite possible to suggest the "right" view--what you really think, that is--while saying all kinds of "wrong" things.

Use of secondary sources or background research is neither required nor forbidden in this paper. Do cite all sources, including the book you are writing about, correctly (MLA parenthetic style is preferred). You should aim for a length of approximately five pages, but length is far less important than the quality of your thought.

1. You have been assigned to write a interpretive essay (whatever that is, to your kind) on the topic of war in Slaughterhouse-Five. Fortunately, you are a Tralfamadorian, so you already know what you will write and will always have written. Write the paper.
2. You are Bertram Copeland Rumfoord (183ff. in Slaughterhouse-Five), writing a chapter in your history of WWII on the bombing of Dresden. You have come to the section where you need to write about the experiences of one Billy Pilgrim, a survivor of the bombing whom you met while you were in the hospital. You disliked the man, so you weren't looking forward to this section of the chapter, but fortunately, you have just acquired a biographical book called Slaughterhouse-Five, so you don't need to talk to him again. Write this section of the chapter.
3. You are the person identified in the poem "Lesbos" as "you." (You can treat this person as a fictional character, or, if you want to do a bit of research on an extraordinarily painful bit of life history, you can treat her as the person many critics think Plath was writing about, Assia Wevill. If you chose the latter, you may find that your reading of what's going on in the poem changes dramatically...fair warning.) You are reading Ariel after its publication, and you realize that whether or not Plath got your character right in "Lesbos" (it's up to you to decide whether she did or not), the book does have something important to teach you about your own life. Write an essay on what Ariel taught you, discussing at least three different poems, at least one of which we did not discuss in class.
4. You are Betty Friedan, and you have just read a letter to the editor of a national literary journal which says, in part, "If only Sylvia Plath had lived long enough to read The Feminine Mystique, she might not have committed suicide...Plath needed most of all to realize that she was not alone in suffering from 'the problem that has no name.'" Write a letter to the editor of the same journal, explaining whether or not you think this is true. Make reference to at least three different poems, at least one of which we did not discuss in class.
5. You are Fischer Smythe (called Fish throughout The Edible Woman). You have just finished reading The Edible Woman, and something about the novel as a whole reminds you of your own interpretation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (212 in The Edible Woman). Write an essay in which you interpret the novel by showing how it connects to your intepretation of Alice.
6. You are Joe Bates, and you have been approached by your friend Marian McAlpin who wants to know whether you as a philosophy instructor think that it would more ethical to marry Peter or to leave him. To help you make up your mind, she has told you her story in detail, in the form of the book called The Edible Woman. Write her a letter advising her on what you take to the be the ethical course of action for her to take in her relationship with Peter. (Joe appears throughout the novel; among the passages where he appears are 27-36, 90-91, 139-142, 194-195, 259-260).

The grading criteria for this assignment will be as follows:

STRUCTURE. If it is appropriate for your essay to be thesis-based, is your thesis specific, and do all the parts of your paper support it? Are the steps of your argument connected into a seamless whole? If it is not appropriate for your paper to have a thesis, have you found another way to organize your material into a unified and coherent whole?

EVIDENCE. If your persona is supposed to be interpreting the text accurately, do you back up every claim you make about the text with evidence (specific quotes, or paraphrases or summaries of longer passages)? Does your evidence logically support your claims? Do you interpret the evidence for your claims persuasively, rather than just quoting a passage and assuming that your reader sees the same things in the passage that you do? Have you taken account of all the passages in the text that might tend to discredit your argument?

If you are having your persona misinterpret the book, do you make it clear somehow what we are really supposed to think the book means, e.g. by lining up good evidence for the right point of view and then self-evidently misinterpreting it, pointing to evidence that counters your point of view but wrongly discounting it, and so on?

INTERPRETATION. Does your paper implicitly or explicitly make an original argument about the meaning of the text--i.e. do you use your fictional premise not only to explore your own views of the issue at hand but to explore the views presented in the book? Does your interpretation take account of the text's subtleties and complexities as they pertain to your topic? How ambitious are you in going after difficult, complex issues?

CREATIVITY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF THE FICTIONAL PREMISE. Does your use of the fictional persona accurately reflect the original character (or, if you develop the character beyond the original, is your developed character consistent with the original)? Does your use of the persona allow you to address the ideas in the works in complex and sophisticated ways?

I will also take account of MECHANICS AND STYLE, but this will count for less than the four other categories above. Is your paper free of grammar and punctuation errors? Is your control of language such as to give the paper an articulate and compelling voice?