Sixth Set of Questions for EN 211

Good evening :)

For Monday, we will move on to an English-language narrative of exploration: the narrative by Capt. John Smith.  We will also look at Paula Gunn Allen's poem "Pocahontas to Her English Husband."  For Wednesday, I would like to begin discussing Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative, so try to read ahead if you can.

Here are links to the videos that we saw.  First is the animated summary of Cabeza de Vaca's narrative:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stkeVcrt4nE

Next is the trailer from Nicolas Echevarria's 1991 film Cabeza de Vaca:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_7INQiXIvk

Last is the trailer from Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo (1982), another film about imperialism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki6bGHq4WsM

For more about this intriguing film, see this blog entry:

http://en202.blogspot.com/2014/02/werner-herzogs-fitzcarraldo.html

For more about Cabeza de Vaca, see this blog entry:

http://en202.blogspot.com/2014/02/cabeza-de-vaca.html

Here are a few questions for you.  

-- Compare and contrast Capt. Smith's narrative to the other narratives of exploration.  Which other narrative is most like his?  Which narrative is least like his?

-- Discuss Capt. Smith as a narrator.  Where is he reliable?  Where is he unreliable?

-- How does he portray the natives?  How does he portray his fellow Englishmen? 

-- How does he portray America (the American landscape)?

-- How does he engage with his audience?

-- Have you been to Jamestown?  How does that experience add to your understanding of Capt. Smith's narrative?

-- What do you know about Pocahontas?  

-- How does Native American poet Paula Gunn Allen portray her?  

-- Compare and contrast English attitudes to America and its natives to French and Spanish attitudes.

-- Explore how the European narrators (including Smith) take on native practices and how they resist native culture.

-- One theme for our course so far is America's multicultural heritage.  Choose one reading.  How does it develop this theme?  How does it complicate this theme?

-- Other themes that we have discussed include European's encounters with Natives, creation, the trickster, the importance of geography, the expansion of literature to include non-fiction, and literature vs. artifact.  Choose one theme and apply it to a reading.

-- Discuss other possible themes.  For me, one that comes to mind is imperialism.  Which readings fit this theme?  How does this theme shape your understanding of American literature?

Keep me posted on your ideas for the presentation.  

Take care,

Dr. Szlyk

p.s.  Below is a picture of Fortress Louisbourg, a museum that replicates a French settlement in the 1700s.  My family and I visited it a few years back.