(For more about Victorian houses, see this link: http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~infocom/scndempr/school.html )
I can't believe that we spent part of class talking about grammar and mechanics, but we did. After all, grammar is an important part of style. As are diction (word choice) and sentence length.
For Thursday, let's reread Saboteur and Araby. Then I'd like you to read Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" (528).
Here are a few questions.
-- Would you like to do a solo presentation or a group presentation? If you would like to do a group presentation, which topics are you most interested in?
-- Choose one of the stories we have read or are reading. How does style, tone, or irony affect your understanding of it? Why?
-- Compare two stories and their tone or use of irony.
-- How does irony add to a story? How does it detract from it?
-- How does the lack of irony detract from a story? How does it improve a story?
-- Now and again commentators discuss the death of irony. Is irony dead now? Or is it alive and well? Here is some commentary for you:
-- How might your view of irony affect the way you read particular stories?
-- Choose the work of an author we've read and characterize his/her style.
-- How does an author's word choice, sentence structure, or sentence length affect your understanding of his/her story? Support your argument with examples.
-- How does an author's word choice, sentence structure, or sentence length affect your response to his/her characters? Support your argument with examples.
-- Poe and Chopin are writers of the 1800s. How are their styles similar? How are they different?
-- Do you feel that the narrator's epiphany in "Araby" is warranted? Why? Why not?
-- How would you characterize the narrator and/or his younger self in "Araby"? How old do you think that the narrator is? Why?
-- Both "Story of an Hour" and "Araby" are set in the 1800s. Based on these stories (and others we've looked at), how would you characterize this era?
-- How did looking at Victorian houses inside and out help you understand "The Story of an Hour"?
-- What do you make of the ending to "Saboteur"?
-- How would you characterize the protagonist? Did the events of the story change him? Or did they bring out latent tendencies?
-- Discuss how Ha Jin overcomes not being a native speaker of English. How might an American writer handle the events, characters, setting, and theme of his story?
Good night, and see you Thursday!
Dr. Szlyk
No comments:
Post a Comment