Analysis Paper #2

Paper copy to me and electronic copy to Turnitin.com due: Tuesday, December 9, 2008

 

Directions: In an essay of no less than 700 words and no more than 1000, address one of the prompts below.  Include your word count and the question number you're responding to in your heading (if nothing else, this tells me that you're reading your assignment instructions).  Remember to use textual evidence to support your analysis and to be as specific as you can be. 

 

  1. Many define art and literature, in part, as that which is "timeless" and "universal"--that is, that art and literature transcend time and place and speak something of value to all people in all times.  Which work of literature that we have read so far seems to continue to speak pointedly to our time and place?  In other words, which of the works that we have read so far offers insight or a message or a truth that people in our time and place need to hear?

 

  1. In opposition to those who extol literature's ability to transcend time and place are those who argue that literature is a reflection or a product of the specific and unique historical circumstances in which it arose.  Select a work that we have read and explain EITHER what it tells us about the particular time and place in which it was created OR what an understanding of the particular time and place in which it was created can tell us about the piece.

 

  1. Take any of one of the Dickinson poems we have read and offer an explication of it.  This means that you will "unfold" or "unpackage" the poem by explaining the action, the symbols, the ideas, etc.  In short, to explicate a poem means to take it apart and examine the parts to understand how it functions as a whole.

 

  1. How is Emerson's idea of Self-Reliance different from and similar to the common use of the term?

 

  1. Consider the passage in the middle of page 1166, the one beginning “Virtues are in the popular estimate…”  What does Emerson mean when he says that “my life is not an apology”?  Is this a healthy attitude or a narcissistic one?

 

  1. On page 1165, Emerson writes, “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.”  What does, in Emerson’s vision, this nonconformist look like?  If one must be nonconformist to be a [hu]man, what is a conformist?  A non-human?  Do you agree with Emerson about the importance of nonconformity?

 

  1. “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men—that is genius” (1163).

“No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature” (1165)

“What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what people think” (1166).

“To be great is to be misunderstood” (1168).

“I must be myself….I must be myself” (1174).

 

Look closely at any of the above quotes in their context.  Do they provide evidence that Emerson is antisocial?  Is Emerson saying "Believe anything you want to believe and do anything you want to do"?  Is he saying "Nothing outside yourself matters"?

 

  1. What does Emerson mean with the statement: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines” (1168).

 

  1. Would you characterize Emerson’s ideas here as primarily political, philosophical, religious, psychological, or practical?

 

  1. Emerson's religious ideas are claimed today by groups as diverse as the Unitarian Universalists and the Mormons.  Does this make sense?  How have such different religious groups made use of Emerson's ideas, especially those in "Self-Reliance"?

 

  1. Explain how hunger functions as a theme in “Life in the Iron Mills.”  What are some of the characters and the korl woman hungry for? 

 

  1. On 2610 of “Life in the Iron Mills,” Kirby says that he is no more responsible for the lives of his workers as the source of their income any more than those who receive their income.  True?  What responsibility, if any, do we have for others?

 

  1. Consider the idea that Kirby, Mitchel, and Dr. May in “Life in the Iron Mills” represent particular ideas or particular philosophies/morals.  What does each represent? 

 

  1. In “Life in the Iron Mills,” what does money represent to Hugh?  To Kirby?  To Mitchel and May?  

 

15.  The point of view of this story is Goodman Brown’s.  That means we, as readers, are watching events unfold through his eyes, and his perspective is “coloring” the information.  Which of Brown’s perceptions, characteristics, actions, and/or attitudes seem most typically Puritan?

 

  1. Consider the use of symbolism in this story.  Pick any three symbols (people, actions, or things that represent or suggest ideas or qualities) and explain what they symbolize.

 

  1. Why is Brown walking alone into the forest at night?  What is his initial motivation for going?  Are his frequent hesitations to go on further genuine or feigned?  What does this tell you about Brown as a person? 

 

  1. What does Brown learn on his journey?  Why does Brown refuse his wife’s joyful welcome upon his return?  At the end of the story, why is Brown isolated and removed from his family and community?

 

  1. What faith has Brown lost?  In God?  In humanity?  What has caused this total loss? 

 

  1. Do you think Hawthorne considers Brown a hero?  What sorts of conclusions and insights do you think Hawthorne hoped his 19th century American readers would draw from “Young Goodman Brown?” 

 

  1. The narrator of “Rappicini’s Daughter” tells us a few times that Rappaccini’s garden is like Eden.  If we play with this theme a bit, who would be the corollary to Eve?  Adam?  God?  Satan?  A redeeming Christ figure?  How is Rappaccini’s garden different from Eden and how are the characters in the story different from the biblical characters? 

 

  1. What rationale does Rappaccini offer to Beatrice to justify his experiment on her?  Why do you think Rappaccini chose to cause his daughter to be, by necessity, forever isolated and disconnected from human kind?  Why does he allow Giovanni to become similarly poisonous and, thereby, an intimate presence in Beatrice’s life?  Is it a gesture of genuine compassion and good will or another attempt at experiment and control?

 

  1. Why is Giovanni increasingly attracted to Beatrice even as he becomes more aware of the danger she poses?  How do you interpret Beatrice’s final words to Giovanni: “O, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?”  What is “poisonous” about Giovanni?  And why does Beatrice die after drinking the antidote?

 

  1. Rappaccini, reputedly, “cares more for science than for mankind.”  In your opinion, is this true?  Why would this fact, if true, be cause concern?  Are there other examples of scientists who seem to care more for science than human kind?

 

  1. Based on “The Birth-Mark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” how would you characterize Hawthorne’s attitude toward science? 

 

  1. Often in his writing, Hawthorne depicts characters in whom one aspect of their humanity (whether the head, the heart, or the physical) dominates in a potentially negative way.  Explain how this applies to Aylmer, Georgiana, and Aminadab in “The Birth Mark.”

 

  1. Why does Aylmer become fixated on Georgiana’s birthmark, and why is he obsessed with removing it?  What motivates him?

 

  1. Toward the end of “The Birth Mark,” the narrator tells us that the birthmark’s “presence had been awful; its departure was more awful still.”  How do you interpret this statement?

 

  1. What similarities or differences do you see between the young Goodman Brown, Rappaccini, Giovanni, and Aylmer?  Between Georgiana, Faith, and Beatrice?

 

  1. The narrator of “Bartleby” tells us that he is a man who finds the “easiest way of life best.”  In what ways does he pursue the “easiest way”?  In what ways does he not?  Does Bartleby produce the easiest way?

 

  1. Bartleby indicates his preferences, not his demands or refusals.  What are preferences and why might they be important to Bartleby? 

 

  1. The narrators says that Bartleby’s passive resistance not only disarms him, but “unmans” him.  What does he mean by this?

 

  1. Why doesn’t the narrator simply have the police remove Bartleby?  Eventually, the narrator moves offices to rid himself of Bartleby, and yet the narrator is still reluctant to leave.  He says, “—strange to say—I tore myself from him whom I had so longed to be rid of.”  Why the reluctance?  And why disrupt his own life in order to avoid booting Bartleby?

 

  1. The lawyer who comes to inquire about Bartleby tells the narrator that he, the narrator, is “responsible” for Bartleby.  Is he?  

 

  1. How does Bartelby’s “prefer” language begin to work its way into the language of others in the office?  Why does this happen?

 

  1. The subtitle of “Bartleby” (“A Story of Wall Street”) would lead us to assume that the setting is of some importance.  Is it?  Are there other “walls” in the story?  What could these symbolize?

 

  1. Some have called this story “something of a parable.”  Do you agree?
  2. Good writing is often capable of being interpreted in many different ways.  In what ways is Bartleby a story about society?  Psychology?  Morality? 

 

  1. Some critics have argued that “Bartleby is a subtle study of the mystery, perhaps the pathology of the fate of the dissenter or nay-sayer in a yea-saying culture.”  True?

 

  1. Consider the quality of the revenge that Montresor seeks in “The Cask of Amontillado.”  How might the manner and the specific details of Montresor plan bring him particular satisfaction?

 

  1. Why is Montresor in “The Cask of Amontillado” relating this story some 50 years after the event took place?   And who is he reciting it to?

 

  1. Describe Montresor in “The Cask of Amontillado.”  Is he a sociopath?

 

  1. What are five specific passages describing the house in “The Fall of the House of Usher” that seem to reflect also the condition of Roderick and Madeline Usher? 

 

  1. How would you characterize Roderick Usher and his life?  What does he consider to be the cause of his problems?  What do you believe to be the cause of his problems?

 

  1. What do Roderick’s artistic efforts—particularly his painting and his poem, “The Haunted Palace”—reveal about his state of mind?

 

  1. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is presented from the point of view of a typical Poe narrator—a character who claims to provide an objective, rational view of events, but whose rationality (mental stability) becomes suspect during the course of the tale.  What evidence suggests that the narrator’s state of mind may be deteriorating?

 

  1. What do you think is happening at the end of “The Fall of the House of Usher,”when Madeline Usher appears?  Is she a hallucination of the narrator?  Is she a ghost?  Or, is she a real living person who has been buried alive?

 

  1. Why does the structure collapse on itself when Roderick and Madeline embrace? 

 

  1. What is “The Fall of the House of Usher” about?  Is it an allegory? About what?  Madness?  The simple pain of resurrecting the “buried” memory of a loved one?

 

  1. We know from Poe’s aesthetic treatises that he believed art should strive toward a unity of effect, to a single effect.  What is the single effect of “The Fall of the House of Usher”?

 

  1. Offer a psychological analysis of the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart.”  

 

  1. Why does the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” kill the old man?  Why does the narrator wait until the eighth night to kill him?

 

  1. Why does the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” ultimately confess to the crime?

 

  1. Is the narrator of the “The Tell-Tale Heart” mad?  Why does he protest his sanity so frequently?  What are his grounds for arguing he is sane?  Is it possible he is sane?

 

  1. Poe’s stories frequently involve “alter egos” (define and provide examples: Ted Bundy, Dr. Jekyll, fight club).  In what sense could the old man of “The Tell-Tale Heart” be an alter ego or shadow self of the narrator?

 

  1. Poe talked about the idea of a “single effect” or a “unity of effect”—i.e. that every element of the story would come together to make some single impression on the reader.  What might that single impression be in “The Tell-Tale Heart”?   How do the various elements of the story come together to create this impression?

 

  1. For Poe, the highest function of art is to convey beauty (morality and didacticism simply get in the way and should not be a part of art).  Is there anything “beautiful” in “Tell Tale Heart?”

 

  1. How is “The Masque of Red Death” an experience of a mood?

 

  1. What is “The Masque of Red Death” really about?

 

  1. Why is Dupin, in “The Purloined Letter,” able to succeed where the Prefect has failed?  What is different about their approaches?

 

61.  How does Dupin, in “The Purloined Letter,” distinguish the poetic mind from the mathematical one?  What is the weakness of the mathematical mind?  Why is the poet more “rational?”

 

62.  In keeping with Poe’s allegorical tendencies, is “The Purloined Letter” about anything other than a search for a letter?

 

  1. Thoreau quotes Paley’s “The Duty of Submission to Civil Government Explained”: “…that so long as the interest of the whole society requires it, that is, so long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniency, it is the will of God that the established government be obeyed.”  According to Thoreau, why shouldn’t we simply do what causes the least social inconvenience/disruption?  With whom are you more in agreement, Thoreau or Paley?

 

  1. For Thoreau, why does money stand in the way of virtue?  Do you think money is an obstacle to a virtuous life?  Explain your answer.

 

  1. “Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of government, yield to it their allegiance and support, are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.”  Explain who Thoreau is talking about here.  Why would these people be such serious obstacles to reform?

 

  1. According to Thoreau, what are some of the problems with “majority rule”?  Do you agree with him that “The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right”?  Explain your answer.

 

  1. On page 1626, Thoreau writes, “…if it [the law] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”  How would you respond to Thoreau?  Are there laws in existence now in our country that compel us to do things that are morally wrong?  Is breaking the law in these instances justified?