Benito Cereno or Woman Hollering Creek or This Is How You Lose Her
To be included in End-of-Semester Portfolio
This writing prompt is for the final essay of the course, Final Essay 3. You will prepare a project proposal and final essay (750 words, minimum) on one of the following texts: Benito Cereno, Woman Hollering Creek, or This Is How You Lose Her.
Part of this assignment will require intensive research so, the sooner you select your text and read it then the sooner you can begin organizing your secondary sources and including them into the conversation of your essay. There must be 5 secondary sources included in this final essay. Some of which you will quote passages from, others from which you will paraphrase from, or even those that you might only select phrases from. You might include for a secondary source another text for comparative analysis (juxtaposing Woman Hollering Creek and This Is How You Lose Her thus counts as two sources, or writing about Benito Cereno in parallel to Beloved also counts as two sources). Remember: one literary text must always remain the primary text of your research project.
First, select a primary text: Benito Cereno, Woman Hollering Creek, or This Is How You Lose Her.
Second, for the critical sources that you select, think about how you intend to define your project. What is it about your primary text that you are most interested in and excited to examine? (Also, allow your field of study to guide the project, that is, if you see its connection with the literary texts we are reading. For instance, when I teach Walt Whitman, my engineers gravitate towards his language for how the tone sounds scientific – Whitman wrote on the technological advances of the mid to late nineteenth century). This is all to pose a larger question: How will you define the literary criticism that you will perform in your writing of that primary text?
Literary Criticism
Thus far we have examined several literary approaches in the course of the semester:
| Narrator | (Gatsby and Waitress) |
| Character | (Gatsby and Waitress) |
| Autobiographical | (Fun Home) |
| The Archive | (Beloved) |
| New Historicism | (Benito Cereno) |
| Feminist Analysis | (Woman Hollering Creek) |
| Cultural Analysis | (This Is How You Lose Her) |
For the previous writing assignment on Fun Home or Beloved, I asked that each of you define your project according to the following terms:
- Historical Approach
- Literary Reading
- Author & Narrative Strategy
- Author Project
- Specific Theme
- Theoretical Approach
Now, for the final essay, I want to provide you another list. We will talk about this list on session 19, though take a glance at it beforehand. The list is a more general introduction to the field of literary criticism and its more expansive possibilities. Essentially, for the final essay, you will select one of the forms of criticism below – each actually expands upon the previous list above yet this list is not as informal.
Formalist Criticism
Intense, close literary reading and step-by-step analysis to understand how various elements in a literary text work together to shape its dynamic effects on the reader
Biographical Criticism
Understanding an author’s life to then understand more thoroughly the literary text and explicate its layers yet does not let the life of the author distort the work
Historical Criticism
An investigation of a literary work by examining the social, cultural, and intellectual context that produced it
Gender Criticism
An examination of how sexual identity influences the production of a literary work by turning to the work of feminists, which could include sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists – for instance, examining representations of women and men, explore author’s gender influences, consider structures of literature created by women
Psychological Criticism
Examining psychoanalytic theories to explore behavior of characters, such as sexuality, the unconscious, and repression
Sociological Criticism
Examining literature in the specific context in which it was written, or the historical setting of the text, both of which consider the cultural, economic, and political context, in addition to exploring the relationship between the artist and society
Mythological Criticism
Examination of literature through individual imaginative uses of myths and symbols specific to different cultures and epochs
Deconstructionist Criticism
Focus on how texts do not have a fixed or single meaning, and also, concentrate on studying how language is being used in the text
Reader-Response Criticism
Attempt to describe what happens in the reader’s mind while interpreting a text, while traditional criticism assumes that imaginative writing is the creative act, reader-response theory acknowledges how reading is its own creative process
Portfolio
As stated in the syllabus, on the last day of class you will submit a portfolio that will include your final essays—Essay 1, Essay 2, and Essay 3—in addition to a statement of reflection on your experience as a writer (also optional is the extra credit assignment that is to be included in the portfolio as well).
