Department of English

Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University


 

Final Paper

Final papers (4–6 pp.) are due in class on Thursday, February 18, 2010.  You may write on any aspect of To Kill a Mockingbird, An Inspector Calls, and/or any work(s) in the coursebook (except “The Rich Boy”) that interests you including on one of the topics suggested below.  These are only general topics that need to be narrowed and refined into a specific argument.  Meet with me to discuss your ideas in more detail according to the date and time chosen in the separate sign-up sheet.

 

1.   Examine the manner in which Olds uses and describes body parts in “Rite of Passage,” and indicate what function these references serve.

 

2.   Analyze the satirical use of academic topics of study in “Rite of Passage” (coming of age rituals) and “My Oedipus Complex” (psychological development).

 

3.   Compare the birthday boy’s growing up in “Rite of Passage” with the girl’s in “The Lady’s Maid.”

 

4.   Examine sound in Frost’s “Out, Out—.”  In addition to denotation and connotation, how does Frost convey or reinforce meaning through sound?  How does the aural quality of words contribute to the telling of the story?

 

5.   Analyze Bishop’s villanelle “One Art.”  How is its form, an old and repetitive structure, appropriate for a theme about difficulty?  What is the effect of repetition, sentence structure, and patterns of imagery in constructing and developing the speaker’s ideas and state of mind?

 

6.   Consider the various appearances of humor in O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.”  What is the function of a joke? for the men? for the story?  What is laughed at or made fun of? by whom?

 

7.   What role do figures of authority play in An Inspector Calls, Trifles, and To Kill a Mockingbird?

 

8.   Compare conversations in “A Family Supper” with the conversations in “Interpreter of Maladies.”

 

9.  How are An Inspector Calls and Trifles daring plays for their time?  How do they use, extend, or break theatrical conventions?

 

10. Choose a poem and follow it like going on a journey.  Where and how does it begin?  Trace the construction and development of ideas through the twists and turns of line, meter, rhyme, imagery, word choice, point of view, and tone.  Where does the poem take you?  What effect does it create?  Where and how does it end?

 

11. Discuss the nature and function of learning in one of the works.

 

12. Discuss the theme of loss and discovery in any of the works we have read.

 

13. Discuss the role of children in at least two of the works we have studied.

 

14. Consider the different kinds of deception in a work or even words or forms that deceive.  Is the deception consistent throughout the work?  Does it illuminate or transform anything?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final Paper Help

 

 

 


 

 


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Last updated February 12, 2010