After the Midterm

Today we began the second half of the semester, sampling graphic fiction (Marjane Satrapi's "The Cigarette").  After the break, we will continue with Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," an example of a horror story, and then we will move on to flash fiction and prose poetry.

Here is a link to "The Cask of Amontillado": https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/the_cask_of_amontillado.pdf

Below are some questions about Marjane Satrapi's "The Cigarette":

-- If you have read graphic fiction or manga, how does that experience help you to read "The Cigarette"?

-- How does Ms. Satrapi use images to tell her story?  Consider the size and content of a panel as well.

-- How does she use text to tell her story?  How does she use dialogue?  How does she use exposition?

-- Choose an element of fiction (character, plot, setting, symbolism, language, narration, theme, and irony/tone).  How does "The Cigarette" draw on this element?

-- What is more important in "The Cigarette"?  Words?  Images?  Why?

-- What do you make of the ending of the story?  Why?

-- Should we read more graphic fiction in ENGL 190?  Why?  Why not?

-- How does your understanding of the Middle East and/or Islam help you to read "The Cigarette"?

-- Is "The Cigarette" fiction?  Or is it a memoir?  Here are links to biographies of the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjane_Satrapi  https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/mar/29/biography

-- Where does the boundary between truth and fiction lie?  If you are writing a memoir, how much  fiction are you allowed?  If you are writing a novel, how closely should you follow real life, and how closely should your characters follow their real-life models?

-- Is "The Cigarette" literature?  Why?  Why not?

Here are a few questions about "The Cask of Amontillado."

-- What do you make of the ending of the story?  Why?

-- Is Montresor a reliable narrator?  Why?  Why not?

-- Why might Poe have chosen to give this story a first-person narration?

-- Should we study "The Cask of Amontillado" in ENGL 190?

-- What makes this story literary?

-- Choose an element of fiction.  How does this element shape "The Cask of Amontillado"?

Have a wonderful break, everyone!  See you on March 19!!