(2016 midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2016 #4: Research Proposals

LITR 4328 American Renaissance

Student Proposal: Ty Beverly

Death and Emily Dickinson

          For my research proposal, I would like to analyze the theme of death within the poetry of Emily Dickinson. I have always had a difficult time understanding her poems but they have kept me captivated despite my obliviousness and so I hope to find a greater understanding. Dickinson seemed to be extremely curious about death as it is shown in many of her poems, or at least hinted at.

Instructor response: Your proposal is well-written, Ty, so yes, proceed. Since the death-subject is so prevalent in ED’s poetry, you’ll find plenty of research, but keep developing your idea of how the personality or character of death varies in different poems. Reading several poems this way could give a sense of the range of meanings and begin to answer your question (and mine) about how or why ED is so enigmatic but also fascinating at the same time.

Student Proposal: Austin Green

The Ghosts of Gothic

I had some trouble coming up with an idea of what to write about for my research project. I knew I wanted to be able to dive as deep as I felt needed in whatever subject I wanted, so I decided to go with the journal option. As for what I am going to write about, I think I'd like to take a swing at writing about Gothic literature, and how its influences (including the characteristics and terms we have learned in class) have evolved or how they still appear in modern literature.

I think the first few entries could be me writing about my research on novels that were the next step after the ones we went over in class. Like how Poe and Hawthorne followed Charles Brockden Brown, who came next? Did they use the same ways to portray gothic elements or did they change them with the times? If they did, how did they change, and how would it reflect back on the original works.

Lastly I would actually like to read a few novels (1-3, depending on time and where the topic and research takes me). I don't know if the novels shown on the Gothic term page website were chosen at random or not, but it might be fun to find copies of both "The Heir of Starvelings" and "The Quicksilver Pool" and write about them in terms of what we learned in class too. The covers look amazing. How can anyone see them and not be interested?

Please let me know if this sounds like an ok plan, or if it needs any changes or reigning in of focus.

Instructor response: I’m impressed by your research proposal, so I’ll happily follow where it takes you, but up front I should say that those book-cover photos on the gothic term-page are pretty random—a few years ago I simply did a Google-Image search and pirated the book covers that exemplified as many gothic motifs as possible. Not to carp or condescend, but I think I also chose them because there was some kind of gauche cheesiness about them that seemed relevant to the gothic, which is that it’s always prone to slip into popular formulas and even parodies of itself like the Addams Family or Tim Burton films.

On the other hand, it’s also always ripe for revival through adaptation to new vehicles, as with the original Alien and Blair Witch movies. Therefore what comes next after Poe and Hawthorne (and Irving and Cooper) can be occasionally impressive but just as likely to descend to formulaic pop.

Ten or more years ago I ordered a fair number of books of criticism on Gothicism and gothic fiction, so some browsing of the stacks might give you some idea of the range of the subject. My first instinct would be simply to read some reference sources on the gothic novel so that you become familiar with some of the more or less illustrious figures who cultivate and carry on the tradition—and there are plenty of authors who sold plenty of books.

In my grad class this week a student brought in some gothic pages from a somewhat later Victorian novel, the British writer Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White from the 1860s, and it touched a lot of the familiar gothic formulas we were studying that night in Poe, but with a much lighter touch than Gothicism of the generation before. In contrast to Poe, who’s unrelentingly gothic, this text would do a little gothic and then back off for a friendlier, more mannerly social scene, then do a little more gothic but back off again, etc. You might find the same fading memories in a writer like Daphne Du Maurier.

Well, I go on and on, but so does the gothic.

Student Proposal: Kimberly Hall

(Research Proposal) – The Evolution of Civil Disobedience

          I would like to explore how the Transcendentalist movement influenced the development of American social reform and counterculture, using both literary and historical texts. I plan on starting with a general overview of Transcendentalist writers and works, including but not limited to Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. I then plan on working my way forward in time through social reform movements, such as abolition and women’s rights, and into twentieth-century socialism and counterculture, going as far as the Beat Generation and the evolution of civil rights movements.

          Given the expansive range of time I would like to cover, I think option two (the literary journal) would best suit my needs. The following is a tentative organization of the paper, which is probably going to change as I do more research, and I am absolutely open to suggestions for particulars to focus on.

·        Background information- Transcendentalism

o   Historical overview

o   Major players; short biographical section

o   Important texts

·        Evolution- early social reform

o   Women’s rights/early feminism and suffrage movement

o   Abolitionist movement

o   Rise of American socialism

o   Major players

o   Important literary texts

·        Evolution- twentieth century

o   American counterculture

o   Beat Generation and important texts

o   Civil rights movements and important texts

I think literature can be a powerful agent for social change, and I hope I can share my enthusiasm for these writers and the movements they helped create.

Instructor response: Yes, KC, that’s a good topic, and the journal option can help manage its breadth, since T’ism and any one of those social movements could made a complete paper.

The most challenging (for me) aspect of your proposal is how much credit for social change to give to intellectual movements like T’ism compared to events and reactions (like the Fugitive Slave Law) and, in literature, more popular texts like Uncle Tom’s Cabin or slave narratives. I’m still writing about Dr. King’s Dream speech, for instance, and increasingly I see that the wheel that turned for Civil Rights was President Kennedy’s assassination.

I’m just thinking out loud here, but I give literature credit for keeping social ideas alive and in circulation at least, and also for helping us remember those ideas long after the events have subsided. Anyway I look forward to your input.

Student Proposal: Cassandra Waggett

Research Proposal, Option 1 or 4

The Spectrum of Piety and Independence in Susan B. Warner’s The Wide, Wide World

In The Wide, Wide World, Warner presents a spectrum on which piety and feminine independence seem to be inversely correlated. On one end, the “angelic” Mrs. Montgomery has an intimate relationship with the Christian god and ensures Ellen that faith is a constant source of strength. At the same time that she makes a claim to this strength, Mrs. Montgomery is rendered helpless by her mysterious illness imposed on her by a cruel and negligent male doctor, and she is ruled by her uncaring husband. The proximity between Mrs. Montgomery’s receipt of poor treatment by mortal men, and her assurances to Ellen that a male god will take care of her seems to suggest that perhaps overreliance on a patriarchal god is misplaced.

On the other end of the spectrum is the self-sufficient and wholly secular Aunt Fortune. She possesses none of Mrs. Montgomery’s gentleness and deviates from society’s expectations for women. During Ellen’s time with Aunt Fortune, Ellen begins to neglect her bible and drift away from God. Although Aunt Fortune lacks piety, she is not an absolute villain. Similarly, although Mrs. Montgomery seems quite virtuous, she is not a perfect saint.

Although at first it may seem that Warner favors the socially acceptable Mrs. Montgomery and criticizes Aunt Fortune’s choices, I do believe that there is sufficient evidence of Warner challenging patriarchal religion, particularly through the juxtaposition of mistreatment by mortal men and claims about a caring male god. Warner may have been inspired by the Second Great Awakening, which encouraged a more intimate relationship with God. The changing perspective on the relationship between an individual and God corresponded to shifting views about the role of women in relation to men. In setting up this spectrum of piety and feminine independence between Ellen’s two mother-figures, Warner may have been depicting the struggle and confusion women and girls faced in adapting to these changing beliefs. Ellen, as a child, felt bewildered by the stark contrasts between her mother and Aunt Fortune. Like Ellen, women of this time period had to decide for themselves how to balance and reconcile faith in a patriarchal god and the possibility of independence from mortal men. In my research project, I plan to take a closer look at the language Warner uses to describe both gender and religion to determine what message she intended to convey about the relationship between the two, and what recommendations she may have had for balancing piety and independence.

Instructor response: I love The Wide, Wide World, and reading your proposal helps me understand why. Great fiction takes intellectual oppositions and renders them in all the complexity of human life and love. You explain this so well (and it’s so late at night after a day of eye exams, family rivals, and processing midterms) that I’m inclined more to celebrate than criticize. Anyway it’s strong, generous, compassionate analysis that promises well for your continued development in our profession, so thanks for letting me do what I can in helping you along. We don’t’ really have to choose between options 1 & 4. If you want to write this as an essay for now, we could fairly easily and efficiently redevelop that as a proposal and presentation-paper over the holidays or beyond. It’s been a while since I’ve read criticism of The Wide, Wide World, but a place to start is the introduction to the novel by Jane Tompkins in the Feminist Press’s 1990s re-issue. I just checked that data on Amazon, where copies are inexpensive. Maybe it’s just my vanity feeling gratified that you see as much quality in the text as I do, but gratifying nonetheless.