Essays

The first version of this essay should be submitted by Session 8. I’ll read your essay carefully and return it to you with suggestions/edits in class so you can work on a final version to be submitted on Session 10.

Second Essay

The final version of this essay should be submitted by Session 15. While no draft is required, I would be happy to give you suggestions on your work before you submit it.

Third Essay

The final version of this essay should be submitted three days after Session 20. No draft is required however, I would be open to providing suggestions and consultation prior to you submitting your work.

Fourth Essay

The final version of this essay must be submitted three days after Session 22. Again, no draft is required but you are welcome to discussing ideas with me prior to submitting your work.

Guidelines for all essays:

Include a title and your name on a single line at the top of your essay.
Indent paragraphs; do not double space between paragraphs.
Double space between lines; use 1” margins all around.
Use Times or Times New Roman Font; 12 point.
Short essays should be between 3–3.5 pages.
The essay should have a good, strong arguable thesis.
Do not quote the prompt. A good strong thesis will signal to the reader which prompt you are answering.

(This image is in the public domain.)

Is Les Liaisons dangereuses a tragic novel? All the characters possess intelligence and leisure. They belong to a small, closed society where members have nothing better to do than to engage in futile and often dubious amusements. Choose two or three characters and argue that they are tragic figures or not. Think about the various codes of honor to which they subscribe: i.e., libertine, religiously committed. Do you, as a reader, care about their fate? Why? Why not?
In his relationship with Tourvel, Valmont is time and again confronted by the conflict between his own feelings and his image of himself. Think about his devotion to Libertine principles: efficiency, self-control, control of others, use of gossip or threat of gossip, erotic justification, and humiliation of victims. Choose moments in the letters when his libertine principles are challenged by his genuine emotions. Argue that his death is a suicide (Danceny must not have been a very strong opponent) due, like Tourvel’s death, to unbearable internal conflict. (Consider his relationship to Merteuil in your response.)
In Letter 81 Merteuil offers a defense of how she was forced to design her identity given the role of women in her society. Argue that the book is, or is not a feminist text. As you discuss this, choose one of the two movies and discuss whether the film presents a strong defensible argument either way. State your case for the book, and then have a nice transition sentence to the movie.
In his Introduction David Coward says: “The ambiguity begins even before events start to unfold. The ‘Editor’s preface’ states that the correspondence we are about to read is authentic and makes the standard eighteenth-century case for moral usefulness. Yet the ‘Publisher’s Forward’ denies both claims: what we are about to read is a novel which is unlikely to produce any moral effect whatsoever. Both were written by Laclos, and both are heavily ironic. By the time the first letter reaches us, the author has locked himself inside his stoutly defended novel and never reappears." Make an argument about how we should read Les Liaisons dangereuses.
Considering the fact that a central theme of Les Liaisons dangereuses is sexual conflict between Merteuil and Valmont, there are surprisingly few overtly sexual scenes. Yet there is a lot of sexual tension. How is this tension created in the novel? Choose one movie version and argue that the sexual tension on the screen is more or less overtly presented. Argue that one kind of presentation (on the screen or on the page) is more effective. To avoid generalizations compare the presentation of one or two scenes from the book and on the screen.

(A plaque of Gabriel García Márquez in Paris,
France. Image courtesy of Patrik Tschudin on
Wikimedia Commons. License CC BY.)

Choose ONE of these, or any other short quote that you enjoyed, and argue that one small line in Gabriel García Márquez’s prose is related to the core of this narrative.

There are some wonderful lines in Chronicle of a Death Foretold:
“Any dream about birds means good health” (6) “No one could understand such fatal coincidences” (12) “Any man will be happy with them because they’ve been raised to suffer.” (31) “Love can be learned” (35) “Just like all the Turks” (101)
García Márquez uses grotesque, surrealistic and comical elements to underscore the absurd nature of life in this provincial town. Choose 2-3 moments in the novel when the author uses these rhetorical elements to underscore the absence of intelligent consideration of the facts that leads to the homicide.
In Dom Casmurro we had an unreliable narrator. Is our journalist in Chronicle of a Death Foretold reliable? Argue that the strange mix of journalistic and non-journalistic facts collected by the narrator make him credible or not.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a parody of a detective novel. Why? Argue that the author uses the detective form to uncover the soul of the town. Why does this style work well to convey the central themes of this novel?
Was Santiago Nasar’s death moral or immoral? Base your argument on details of his own demeanor, the “bewilderment of innocence,” facts related to his persona that are shared in the novel. (Do not debate whether honor killing is moral or immoral. For the purposes of this topic, you are inside the town and think it’s an okay practice.)

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(This image is in the public domain.)

Thérèse Raquin - Study the interior spaces presented in the novel: choose two or three and analyze how they shape their inhabitants or how we come to understand the author’s sense of the organic relationship between who we are and how we live.
In her article on love triangles, Ethel Person says: “Romantic love has been described as a religion of two, but love pairs can be infected by triangles and may even be wholly contaminated by them. Or, more positively, triangles may sometimes help love along: Some pairings first crystallize in the context of a triangle.” In both Thérèse Raquin and Dom Casmurro mothers provide a triangle that either motivates or crushes love. Analyze the role of the mother in one of these novels and argue that her presence, attitudes, prejudices either make love more desirable or suppress the connection in a couple.
In Dom Casmurro we do not know whether Bento’s jealousy is warranted or an after product of his character. Use moments from the novel to argue either case: that Capitú was unfaithful or that Bento’s world-view is so distorted and his moods so changing that he was incapable of trust.
In Thérèse Raquin the characters’ physiological state/genetic character is intimately linked to how they confront the world. Choose one or two characters and analyze the language Zola uses to describe them. Argue that the entire evolution of the character’s role in the novel is determined by traits over which they have little control.
Obsession is a sentiment that drives the action in both Thérèse Raquin and Dom Casmurro. Choose any character from either of these novels and argue that he/she was incapable of controlling his/her various obsessions either because of genetic, or circumstantial, environmental factors. Use textual references to build your case.
Of course if you’d like to design your own topic, that’s fine, but please check with me first to be sure it is an arguable thesis.

(A Spanish poster for Kiss of the Spider Woman.
Image courtesy of Ricardo Pablo on flickr.
License CC BY-NC-SA.)

The Kiss of the Spider Woman is a novel that deals with power: political and sexual. Does Puig break conventional notions of power? To what degree? Support your argument with the text.
The novel is, in part, a genre that teaches us how to live, how not to live, how to distinguish between good and evil; how to love; how to be a good friend, how people communicate and change through dialogue. Choose one or two specific dialogues from The Kiss of the Spider Woman and explain why the novel is didactic—or not. Be specific.
“The personal is political” was a theme of the 1960s. Can this saying be applied to The Kiss of the Spider Woman? Why or why not? To what point are our fantasies an important part of our political lives? Create a nuanced argument in your response.
To what point does The Kiss of the Spider Woman show how harmful conventional gender roles can be in terms of making autonomy impossible? How does the notion of being a “queen” limit Molina? How does his notion of what is “manly” limit Valentin? Does Molina’s sexual ideology change in the novel? Valentin’s? Create a nuanced argument based on the text.

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Introduction to European and Latin American Fiction: Great Books on the Page and on the Screen