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Student Midterm submissions 2013 (2013 midterm assignment) |
LITR 5831 World Literature
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Jacob A. McCleese
5 October 2013
Midterm: Web Highlights
Peer review is a highly valuable part of a
student’s learning experience. Students pay very close attention to the
critique, positive or negative, received from their fellow students. Personally,
each time I review essays written by my peers it enhances my skills as a writer.
In a way, it’s as if my peers become my instructors, guiding me down the path of
writing. It is with these thoughts that I approach the web highlights for this
class. Matt Richards, Kristine Vermillion, and Juan Garcia are my chosen
instructors for this lesson in peer review.
Matt Richards’s essay, “Immigrants and Minorities
are not the Same Group: The Differences and Similarities of these Culture
Groups,” was filled with great ideas wrapped in an overwhelmingly personal
prose. Richards develops a definition for minorities and immigrants by examining
the very different experiences of these groups in America. He writes, “ Minority
groups…didn’t choose to come to America” (Richards). This is the major disparity
between immigrants and minorities outlined in this essay. Immigrants came to
America desiring a closer connection with the dominant culture, while minorities
were forced from their homelands. Richards elaborates on this point beautifully
by using various examples from his class texts, the course objectives, and his
personal experiences.
However, his overuse of personal, informal language
was very distracting, as was his constant repetition of phrases. For example, in
the first paragraph he writes, “The American immigrants journey to America”
(Richards). Repetitions such as this detract from a reader’s ability to enjoy an
essay. They drain the interest of the essay, lag the pacing, and indicate a lack
of substance in the author’s response. Also, in the first paragraph he uses “I”
three times in consecutive sentences. My formative writing instructors always
taught that informal language should be avoided, but when using this language it
should be used sparingly. So, this may have just been a personal preference
problem, but it is worth addressing.
The issues I had with Richards’s use of personal
language did not carry over to Kristine Vermillion’s essay, “Problem Solvers on
Steroids.” This essay deals with the value and relevance of the Utopian genre.
She masterfully weaves in and out of class texts to show that each one stands on
it’s own as a significant piece of literature. Her personal, informal language
is encased by a significant amount of literary analysis/critique. Perhaps this
is what makes all the difference between Richards and Vermillion’s essays.
Writing doesn’t necessarily have to be detached and informal, but personal
language needs to be a backdrop, not in the forefront. Vermillion uses her
personal language as a compliment to her analysis and not the other way around.
Lastly, Juan Garcia’s essay,
“To Be or Not To Be, Racial Integration in the 18th
and 19th
Century,” demonstrates the necessity of revision. Revision was never a big part
of my writing process until graduate school. After reviewing several of my
early, disappointing efforts at graduate writing it became very apparent that my
evolution as a writer needed to include a strong revision component.
An essay may contain fascinating ideas, elaborate
writing, and vocabulary that any logophile would be proud to claim. However, a
lapse in simple grammar can ruin an essay’s validity and turn a reader
completely off. Garcia’s essay begins and ends brilliantly. His focus on what
W.E.B du Bois coined, “Double Consciousness” in connection with the course
objectives, is seamless and quite pleasant at first. Yet, the missing letters,
misspellings, and quotes that don’t appear to flow with the rest of the essay
disrupted my ability to enjoy Garcia’s prose. This essay was a great reminder
that revising assignments is just as important as writing them.
My reviews were not intended as a reflection on the
pitfalls of writing, but focusing on these pitfalls was therapeutic. Learning
from the mistakes and successes of others, hopefully, will allow me to avoid
errors and succeed in the future.
Midterm: Research Proposal
All good things must come to an end and awful
things must also crumble. My research project will attempt to place the idea of
“empire” into either the awful or good side of the opening line. Empires have
affected the history of the world ever since the earliest forms of mankind chose
to live in communities. If there are multiple groups of people, one will always
emerge dominant. Right? Isn’t that the natural state of the world? Is this the
basic human nature that drives the dominion of empires throughout history? These
are simple questions with profound implications that drive me to search for
answers.
My research will be presented
in two research posts. This format is most effective because my initial
questions break down into two categories. First, why and how did the earliest
empires form? Again this sounds simplistic, but it grows into a complicated
quandary. Empires are expanding enterprises convinced that the promulgation and
dispersion of their culture is the best way to contribute to the improvement of
the global culture. Is this a brash assumption or the correct appraisal of one’s
culture? I don’t know, but I want to find out. Secondly, where and how does
American culture compare to former empires? Reading Niall Ferguson’s
Colossus
sparked my interest in this question. Is America
destined to fail like all the other Imperial powers? Or is there something
unique about the American approach to imperialism? These are the questions and
ideas that guide my research. I hope to find some answers soon.
Midterm Essays: Focusing on the Ladies
Of the two sexes, women have historically been
portrayed as more complicated. From emotionally vexing to physically
overwhelming, female complexity has been one major focus of a masculine
dominated society for centuries. Authors of novels are not exempt from this.
Whether they are colonial, post-colonial, neo-colonial, or trans-national,
developing the feminine character in literature is a challenge for any author.
The obvious question here is why? Why is it so difficult, especially for
colonial authors, to portray real women in novels? For colonial authors, I
assert that the problem lies in the lack of female representation in colonial
society and as the world emerges into post-colonialism, female authors make
their presence known (obj. 1).
Daniel Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe
is arguably one of the best representations of classic colonial literature. The
novel portrays one man, an English gent, who sets out on an adventure, finds an
island, and begins ruling over the natives. The novel is a wonderful piece of
the literary canon; however, the lack of feminine presence is astounding.
Throughout the novel the only woman who is allowed a fraction of a voice is
Crusoe’s mother.
In the very beginning of the novel Crusoe’s mother
objects to his setting off for adventures. However, the mother is never given
any real dialogue. Defoe writes, “This put my mother in a great passion, she
told me it would be to no purpose to speak to my father…he knew to well what was
my interest to give his consent” (1.10). Crusoe’s mother’s voice is absorbed in
the proclamations of her son. Although readers are lead to believe that Crusoe’s
thoughts represent his mother’s, this drowning of female dialogue with masculine
reflections presents a strong representation of the colonial world. Women didn’t
need to speak, or be heard if men were able to speak for them. This trend is
easily seen in many colonial novels. Men speaking and writing for women was
almost a type literary archetype for colonial authors.
Allowing male characters to
speak for female characters eliminates the need for authors to formulate real
representations of women in their novels. This trend causes old issues, fears,
and resentments of women to be perpetuated. The silencing of women effectively
raises a sort of trepidation about women, and this uneasiness takes front stage
in The Man
Who Would Be King.
This story places women in two major categories:
sources of conflict and entities that detract from masculine progress. In
paragraph 2.24, Dravor asks the members of two villages what the trouble is
between them; the members of the village point, “to a woman as fair as you or
me” (2.24). The implication here is that this woman was white and the native’s
of both villages wanted to possess her. Beautiful women, particularly virgins,
causing conflict are an old problem. Helen of Troy is probably the most famous
example, and most people are familiar with this tale. An intensely beautiful
woman is taken from her home; her husband is so distraught that he starts a war
to get her back. The female body is beset and scarred with the results of
conflict between men dating back to the earliest civilizations. Wars and bloody
disputes have been stirred up just to possess the female body, and the only way
to avoid being drawn into a conflict, over a woman, is to avoid them at all
costs.
This is the advice Carnehan offers to Dravot.
Carnehan says, “The bible says that kings ain’t to waste their strength on
women” (2.55). Here are two male characters turning to arguably one of the most
influential books ever in order to justify abstaining from female influence.
Carnehan also implies that if a man wants to succeed, or become a king, women
will only get in the way of that goal. Like alcohol, women intoxicate men. They
excite all masculine desires and then inhibit a man’s ability to perform.
According to Carnehan, alcohol and women are equally disastrous to any
progressively minded man.
The assumptions made about
women by colonial authors are male assertions and do not have feminine answers
within the text. However, reading intertextually allows readers to posit
responses from feminine authors to their male counterparts. Women are the
ultimate others in colonial literature, but in post-colonial writing, women are
often the hegemonic voice. They are the driving narrator, the fully developed
characters, and the most psychologically expressive features in the novel.
Post-colonial women make their presence felt and throw all preconceptions back
in the face of a male dominated society. Jamaica Kincaid’s,
Lucy,
exemplifies all of this and so much more.
Lucy, the character, is a
strong, young, bold woman from Antigua. Kincaid’s novel not only bears this
young woman’s name, but everything in the novel is touched by Lucy’s imprint.
Readers are given a view of the world from the perspective of an individual that
does not belong to her current society, in more than one way. Lucy dictates all
impressions, emotions, dialogue, and modalities demonstrated in this novel. This
is a major change from the colonial literature discussed earlier. The male
characters in
Lucy take a back seat and
the driver’s seat is occupied by a female lead.
One of the most shocking things Lucy does with her
position is to turn the convention of feminine virtue upside down. Lucy says, “I
did not care about being a virgin…it mattered to him to be the first boy I had
been with, I could not give him such a hold over me” (Kincaid 83). Colonial
authors equated feminine virtue with virginity. If a woman surrendered her
precious gift then she also surrendered her virtue, trustworthiness, honesty,
and social purity. Her virtue was inherently connected with who she was as a
person. Kincaid’s inversion of feminine virtue is similar to Black authors
inverting the color code. Both are taking possession of something used to
discriminate or control, and they are turning it into something that
disenfranchised people can use to empower themselves.
All of this leaves me wondering, what do female
characters bring to a novel? One answer that is immediately apparent is depth.
If novels are all about male problems, in a male world, dictated by men, and
written by men that would provide for very limited writing. Women bring a depth
of emotion, pain, and struggle that men are just beginning to understand. I
don’t want to throw out the male writers and start a feminist revolution.
However, women do deserve a seat at the table and a real voice in the literary
conversation.
