The Novella For your second critical analysis, please choose one of the following: It has been said.

The Novella

For your second critical analysis, please choose one of the following:

  It has been said that “Gogol’s real forte was humorous satire, and he used it to make the Russians aware of the decadence of their institutions” (The Reader’s

Companion to World Literature), those institutions of a Czarist dictatorship: of an evolving and hardening totalitarianism, administered largely through a jumble of bureaucracies.  Likewise, Kafka is said to have “captured the imagination of a Europe caught in the 1930’s in the irrationalities of dictatorship.  Kafka’s work deals with an incomprehensible world and authority . . . the plight of men in an irrational world of police states” (Reader’s Companion).  With reference to each writer’s work and to that context of an oppressive political-economic-social order from which each writer’s work emerges, trace the continuity of ideas, of social, psychological, and spiritual perceptions of modern man caught in the predicament of our epoch–dystopically—of humankind’s situation in an age of anxiety, alienation, and existential angst—from Gogol to Melville, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Baldwin, or Ellison (Work a comparative analysis of at least two stories out of this). In what respects does the symbolism suggested by Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych or Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, and Gogol’s “The Nose,” Dostoevsky’s “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man,” Ellison’s “Battle Royal,” or Melville’s “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids” suggest common themes or common concerns of each author—concerns relating to a fragmented or spiritually reduced humanity, a humanity lacking in charity and compassion, a humanity vicious in its preference for judgment and condemnation over love and charity? Choose any one or two of the “six essential aspects” of existentialism from your handout / notes and compare Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych or Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, with “The Nose,” “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids,” “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” “Battle Royal” or “Sonny’s Blues” in each work’s development of your chosen aspect of existential thinking. Compare Gregor Samsa or Bartleby with either of Melville’s merchant narrators, Dostoevsky’s ridiculous man, Baldwin’s Sonny or Ellison’s Battle Royal narrator as tragic characters, crushed by circumstances, yet transcending their circumstances—“saved” in a sense—through their epiphanies or their existential assertions of dignity in humanity. Having in mind a clear definition of “absurdity” (defined in handout), compare the writings of Kafka or Paolo Bacigalupi with those of Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Melville, Ellison, or Baldwin as dystopic, depicting modern man’s social, psychological, and spiritual struggle against the absurd, against the grotesque. Having in mind a clear definition of entropy (as developed in class), compare the writings of Kafka or Paolo Bacigalupi with those of Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Melville, Ellison, or Baldwin as depictions of modern man’s social, psychological, and spiritual struggle against entropy—heat death of the universe, heat death of the soul / death of love . . .

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing, nothing you can measure any more
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
Has crossed the threshold and it’s overturned the order of the soul

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I’ve seen the nations rise and fall
I’ve heard their stories, heard them all
But love’s the only engine of survival

(Leonard Cohen: “The Future”) Compare The Metamorphosis or Bartleby the Scrivener with “The Nose,” “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids,” “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” “Battle Royal,” or “Sonny’s Blues” in each’s respective treatment of the problem of evil—of the potency of destructive, annihilating forces operating within human systems, institutions and social structures, and within the human psyche.

  Compare Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych or Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener with the writings of Gogol, Dostoevsky, Melville, Ellison, or Baldwin in each’s respective treatment of the theme of salvation—the necessary terms by which humanity may transcend its condition in a hostile, meaningless, fallen or absurd universe.

  You may work comparatives on your own thematic-conceptual initiatives out of your close reading of stories assigned (whether discussed in class or not) and your attentiveness to what is discussed in class. Or, you may extend, deepen and expand such comparative analysis as you choose to begin in one of your two exam 2 essays.

Select a poem or poetic excerpt to begin your essay in epigraphic form—or to otherwise incorporate into your comparative analysis—from poems (including lyrics) treated in class, or of your own selection.  Follow the writing process in all of its essentials, leaving yourself ample time for planning and research, development of a thesis, drafting, revision, editing, and documentation according to MLA standards of at minimum six sources—two or three of these being primary sources, stories/poems, and at least three of these being secondary sources (books or full text articles from journals only—no reference material—and making free use of all resonant texts and artifacts provided)—and the production of a final draft of 1200-1700 words, double-spaced and in 12 point font (Courier or Times New Roman).  Format and document your paper according to MLA guidelines as referenced in The Little Seagull Handbook or in Chapters 42-46 in Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing.

 

 

Addendum

(Added options)

  Trace a theme of absurdity-entropy-death of love-apocalypse through The Metamorphosis, The Death of Ivan Ilych, or Bartleby the Scrivener and “The Nose”, “The Scream in Your Silence”, “Our Secret”, “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids”, “Sonny’s Blues” or “Battle Royal.” Trace a theme of lottery-lynching-human sacrifice through The Metamorphosis, The Death of Ivan Ilych, or Bartleby the Scrivener and “Battle Royal”, “The Nose”,  “The Scream in Your Silence”, “Our Secret”, “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids”, or “The Lottery. Trace a theme of “the child in the basement” through The Metamorphosis, The Death of Ivan Ilych, or Bartleby the Scrivener and “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids”, “Sonny’s Blues”, “Battle Royal” or “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” Trace a theme of saving love-grace through The Metamorphosis, The Death of Ivan Ilych, or Bartleby the Scrivener and “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”, “The Scream in Your Silence”, “Our Secret”, “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids”, “Sonny’s Blues” or “The Rocking Horse Winner.” Trace a theme of “defying gravity versus Diana Moon Glampers’ shotgun through The Metamorphosis, The Death of Ivan Ilych, or Bartleby the Scrivener and “Harrison Bergeron”, “The Scream in Your Silence”, “Our Secret” or “Sonny’s Blues.” Trace a theme of existential “metamorphosis” or becoming “vermin” through The Metamorphosis, The Death of Ivan Ilych, or Bartleby the Scrivener and “The Nose”, “The Scream in Your Silence”, “Our Secret”, “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids”, “Sonny’s Blues” or “Battle Royal.” Trace a theme of the existential conundrum—yes or no, preferring or preferring not to accessorize one’s self—through The Metamorphosis, The Death of Ivan Ilych, or Bartleby the Scrivener and “The Nose”, “The Scream in Your Silence”, “Our Secret”, “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids”, “Sonny’s Blues” or “Battle Royal.

 

Due Date: See calendar.

 

preview of the answer… Political, economic and social oppression has been in existence for many decades back.Down the green hills athwart a cedarn cover, a savage place as holy as enchanted, as ever beneath a waning moon was haunted, by woman wailing for her demon lover. This translation from ancient poetry reveals the oppression that noble man has to go through to at least survive under those in charge.

APA 1241 words

 

 

 

 

  Added to cart