Due Dates
- Arrow of God
- First draft due Monday, February 5
- Final draft due Monday, February 12
- Nervous Conditions or selected poetry
- First draft due Monday, March 12
- Final draft due Monday, March 19 (Exam Week)
Here is the schedule (in a DOC file) for smaller homework assignments.
Instructions
The instructions are the same for both essays:
Write a paper in which you discuss the relationship between one or more formal properties of the work and either the social context or the idea of “reality” in the book.
For example:
- How does the shifting point of view (POV) in Arrow of God reflect Achebe’s vision of reality?
- What does Achebe’s use of language reveal about the social context in which the novel is set?
- Why does Dangarembga use a teenage girl as the narrator of her story, and what reality is produced as a result?
- How do Dangarembga’s metaphors of food and eating serve as a way to talk about the social situation of the novel?
- What feeling about the social situation being described is created by the line breaks in Mapanje’s “Smiller’s Bar Revisited”?
- Why does Chimombo use the myth of Napolo as a metaphor for the Malawian government in “Napolo: The Message”?
These questions are suggestions only. You may develop your own ideas about the works. The only restriction is that you must describe how the form of the book shapes our understanding of reality or of the social context (or both).
Points to bear in mind:
- Your analysis of the relationship between form and content will constitute the argument or thesis of your paper. In other words, you’ll be making a claim about that relationship, and defending the claim with evidence from the text.
- The formal property you choose may be one of those discussed in Formal Properties of Literature, or one discussed in class. If you would like to write about one that has not been discussed, please speak to me first.
Guidance on writing:
The paper should be approximately 800 – 1,200 words (i.e. 3 – 4 pages double-spaced in 12-point font with 1-inch margins).
Format
Please follow these instructions carefully. It makes a big difference to me when I read your paper.
- Give your paper a title. The title should convey the central idea of your paper. I consider this an essential part of the essay. If you can state your idea in a simple phrase you know that you know what you’re talking about.
- The paper should be double-spaced.
- The font should be 10- or 12-point.
- The margins should be approximately 1 inch on all sides
- Put your name, “English 202,” the date, and the number of words in the upper right corner, single-spaced.
- Please staple your paper.