Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University
2202235 Reading and Analysis for the Study of English Literature
Test 1 Discussion
General Comments:
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Prompt: (25 points) Trouble marks each of the first three works we have read, and how it is resolved shapes the telling of the story. Choose at least two works and write an essay discussing the difference between one resolution and the other. What is the sticky problem? What is the way out? You might consider how the solutions differ in some of these terms: imagery, metaphors, tone, pace, irony, effect, outcome, implications, and relation to the themes of the work.
Comments:
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Good Responses
Notice how good responses answer the prompt right away, identify the works involved, and establish the focus and direction of the discussion that will follow.
Student F:
(25
points) Trouble marks each of the first three works we
have read, and how it is resolved shapes the telling of the
story. Choose at least two works and write an essay
discussing the difference between one resolution and the
other. What is the sticky problem? What is the way out? You
might consider how the solutions differ in some of these
terms: imagery, metaphors, tone, pace, irony, effect,
outcome, implications, and relation to the themes of the
work. "Each unhappy person is unhappy in their own way." This is the problem for Simone that marks Beber's Misreadings. While that teenager is coping with a young person's desperate unhappiness in the play, an older person is struggling with a sticky and no less desperate spiritual anxiety that structures Milton's "Sonnet 19." Simone ends both her personal and academic problem with a single answer: suicide. Milton's speaker, on the other hand, wants to avoid being ended in darkness with "weeping and gnashing of teeth," so his solution is about enabling him to live. |
- Uses quote from play to open the essay and immediately answers what the problem is - Links two responses in two works together while setting up the differences between them as a development for solution from the opening problem. |
Student K:
(25
points) Trouble marks each of the first three works we
have read, and how it is resolved shapes the telling of the
story. Choose at least two works and write an essay
discussing the difference between one resolution and the
other. What is the sticky problem? What is the way out? You
might consider how the solutions differ in some of these
terms: imagery, metaphors, tone, pace, irony, effect,
outcome, implications, and relation to the themes of the
work. Both Milton's "Sonnet 19" and Canin's "The Palace Thief" deal with trouble within the main character—the speaker/poet and Mr. Hundert, respectively—and their solutions similarly come with keys: the poet uses "Patience" and Hundert uses "conviction." |
- Immediately incorporates and identifies both works in the response in a unified way. - Cites key terms in the texts to establish the comparison of two solutions and to substantiate the claim being made about them. |
(25
points) Trouble marks each of the first three works we
have read, and how it is resolved shapes the telling of the
story. Choose at least two works and write an essay
discussing the difference between one resolution and the
other. What is the sticky problem? What is the way out? You
might consider how the solutions differ in some of these
terms: imagery, metaphors, tone, pace, irony, effect,
outcome, implications, and relation to the themes of the
work. A series of metaphors characterizes both Neena Beber's play Misreadings and Ethan Canin's short story "The Palace Thief." In the former, the imagery of the metaphor shows the characters' personality, Ruth and Simone. In the latter, the occurrence of the metaphor announces the state of mind of Mr. Hundert. |
- Brings up metaphors but does not show how they answer or relate to any of the prompt questions: What is the trouble? What is the solution? What is the difference between solutions in two works? |
Student O:
(25
points) Trouble marks each of the first three works we
have read, and how it is resolved shapes the telling of the
story. Choose at least two works and write an essay
discussing the difference between one resolution and the
other. What is the sticky problem? What is the way out? You
might consider how the solutions differ in some of these
terms: imagery, metaphors, tone, pace, irony, effect,
outcome, implications, and relation to the themes of the
work. Neena Beber's play Misreadings and John Milton's "Sonnet 19" both start with a problem that affects the rest of the work. The play opens with Simone creating a problem and Ruth posing a problem. The sonnet similarly begins with Milton stating a problem. Simone and Ruth's announced problems begin all the other issues in the play, and Milton's thinking of his problem continues throughout the fourteen lines. However, the two works are different in that Simone shows an opposite emotion from Ruth and Milton. |
- The prompt asks: What is the trouble? What is the solution? What is the difference between solutions in two works? but the student changes it to "What are the similarities and differences in the trouble that causes all the problems in two works?" Discussion then focuses on beginnings and trouble rather than endings, resolutions, and coping with trouble. |
(25
points) Trouble marks each of the first three works we
have read, and how it is resolved shapes the telling of the
story. Choose at least two works and write an essay
discussing the difference between one resolution and the
other. What is the sticky problem? What is the way out? You
might consider how the solutions differ in some of these
terms: imagery, metaphors, tone, pace, irony, effect,
outcome, implications, and relation to the themes of the
work. Milton begins his "Sonnet 19" with the musing line "When I consider how my light is spent." He then brings up time in the form of days, darkness, and expansiveness. The speaker later introduces one Talent and is very worried that it will cause God to be angry at him if he does nothing with it. When Patience comes to the speaker's aid, it occurs just before the volta, the turn of the sonnet's argument. |
- Describes the sonnet line by line, following the argument and structure of the sonnet with no argument of the student's own. |
(25
points) Trouble marks each of the first three works we
have read, and how it is resolved shapes the telling of the
story. Choose at least two works and write an essay
discussing the difference between one resolution and the
other. What is the sticky problem? What is the way out? You
might consider how the solutions differ in some of these
terms: imagery, metaphors, tone, pace, irony, effect,
outcome, implications, and relation to the themes of the
work. Though there are several parallels between "Sonnet 19" and Misreadings, there are also many aspects of the two stories which are somewhat different. |
- Parallels between which aspects of the texts? - What are the aspects of the texts that you will examine? - The works are different in what ways? - Vagueness makes your essay bland, uninteresting. - Vagueness says you don't have a point to make. |
(25
points) Trouble marks each of the first three works we
have read, and how it is resolved shapes the telling of the
story. Choose at least two works and write an essay
discussing the difference between one resolution and the
other. What is the sticky problem? What is the way out? You
might consider how the solutions differ in some of these
terms: imagery, metaphors, tone, pace, irony, effect,
outcome, implications, and relation to the themes of the
work. Trouble is what every work of literature has. Without it there would be no conflict, no drama, no tension, no lessons, and no reward. The function of trouble in a story is absolutely crucial. In real life one might wish for trouble-free life, but in literature, trouble is the throbbing heart of plot, character, dialogue, tone, and theme, the life-giving force of the entire piece. Therefore, closely scrutinizing the problem or trouble that a writer has created in that work will allow us to understand every other element in the work. |
- This
beginning is too broad. It announces trouble in general rather
than specific trouble in the work that is going to be analyzed.
It also addresses all of literature rather than focusing tightly
on at least two particular works as required by the test prompt.
You don't have time to cover everything being introduced here. - An entire paragraph is wasted and we don't even know yet what works will be discussed, which passage, whose trouble. - It does not look like there will be enough room to develop from this sweeping beginning to detailed and in-depth analyses of solutions in a balanced way. |
(25
points) Trouble marks each of the first three works we
have read, and how it is resolved shapes the telling of the
story. Choose at least two works and write an essay
discussing the difference between one resolution and the
other. What is the sticky problem? What is the way out? You
might consider how the solutions differ in some of these
terms: imagery, metaphors, tone, pace, irony, effect,
outcome, implications, and relation to the themes of the
work. In Misreadings, Simone is ironically both a troublemaker and a problem solver. She creates problems for Ruth, her professor, and she solves Ruth's problems as well as her own. Unlike the teacher who can only ask questions, Simone the student asks and answers. She faces problems and she sets out to solve them. |
- What
problems does Simone create for Ruth? - Mentioning or citing Ruth's question, "What are the issues for which you would kill?," to preface Simone's answer to it would help illustrate and support the claim about Simone. - The argument is that Simone asks and answers multiple questions, creates and solves problems, so evidence showing more than one case of Simone's role would help substantiate the assertion. |
Student V | Student U |
(25
points) Trouble marks each of the first three works we
have read, and how it is resolved shapes the telling of the
story. Choose at least two works and write an essay
discussing the difference between one resolution and the
other. What is the sticky problem? What is the way out? You
might consider how the solutions differ in some of these
terms: imagery, metaphors, tone, pace, irony, effect,
outcome, implications, and relation to the themes of the
work. Misreadings ends with Simone committing suicide like Anna Karenina in Tolstoy's novel. She does what her teacher tells her to do: to let the story move her. This tragic ending tells Ruth and the audience that they have misread Simone throughout the play. |
(25 points)
Trouble marks each of the first three works we have read,
and how it is resolved shapes the telling of the story.
Choose at least two works and write an essay discussing the
difference between one resolution and the other. What is the
sticky problem? What is the way out? You might consider how
the solutions differ in some of these terms: imagery,
metaphors, tone, pace, irony, effect, outcome, implications,
and relation to the themes of the work. If Ruth's
problem (and the audience's) is inability to read a literary
text as speaking to and about life, then Simone's solution
to commit suicide in the play is able to overcome that
obstacle either way. Ruth can stay in her "world made of
words" and analyze Simone's "inexorable progression" toward
tragedy the way she studies literary texts like Anna
Karenina. "Study me, baby," she even insists. And,
"I want to look slick..." tells us from the start that
Simone is already an actor, performing a part in a play. The
audience can see the play only as entertainment for the
night, a separate world from reality like Ruth, "where death
is as impermanent as anesthesia." But Beber's trick is the
ironic impermanence of live theater. If the audience,
despite frequent reminders, forgets that an actress is
acting fresh and pretending nuisance as Simone, and read her
not as a character but as a person, then that "wall"
separating two different worlds has come down. And despite
Ruth's words "replaying" in one's ears after the blackout,
one has to get out of the theater; that ending is real.
Misreadings solved. |
- What does the suicide mean as a
solution? To what problem? How effective is it? Why? - What does Simone obeying her teacher's instructions mean? Is it ironic? Why? |
S
Reference
Beber, Neena. Misreadings. The Best American Short Plays 1996–1997. Ed. Glenn Young. New York: Applause, 1997. 1–10. Print.
Bush, Douglas, ed. Milton: Poetical Works. London: Oxford UP, 1974. Print.
Canin, Ethan. "The Palace Thief." The Palace Thief. London: Bloomsbury, 1994. 169–227. Print.
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updated March 4, 2015