MA Text Question Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko
As a writer, Aphra Behn defied generic constraints, writing in prose, poetry, and drama. As a
work, Oroonoko defies categorical constraints. William Spengemann suggests it should be called
“the earliest American novel” (Spengemann), while Marta Figlerowicz believes its narrative
complexities arise from Behn’s facility with drama. No matter what the genre, Oronooko, or the
Royal Slave, a True History (1688) grapples with the question of slavery, although in a way that
reifies the legitimacy of Restoration notions of political and social hierarchy and that stops short
of moral outrage at the institution of slavery or with colonialism as an enterprise. Moreover, as a
successful woman writer who published widely and lucratively under her own name, the
character “Mrs. A. Behn” narrates from the intersection of numerous positions, as a married
woman writer, as a resident in a colonial outpost, and as the confidant of a slave, albeit one who
still bears the stamp of in-born nobility in which Behn the royalist believed deeply. As a result of
the narrator’s complex subjectivity, the topic of the novella, its historical moment, and the
politics of the author, Behn’s Oroonoko suggests numerous productive theoretical approaches to
the complexities of the text: gender theory, race theory, post-colonial theories of hybridity and
negritude, narrative theory, genre theory, as well as approaches that make use of New Historicist
methodologies.
After examining the secondary scholarship about Oronooko placed on reserve for you in
The College’s library, and examining the additional materials provided by the Norton Critical
Edition as well as the pieces available through the College’s databases, identify a problem within
the text and write an essay that uses one clearly articulated theoretical approach to address it .
Remember that this is a research essay in which you must demonstrate your familiarity with
secondary scholarship as well as contemporary literary theory. Scholars have used many
theoretical approaches to Behn’s text including textual scholarship (i.e. comparisons of the
novella to a later drama based on it), cultural studies, gender/queer theory, reader- response
theory, narrative theory, deconstruction, and others. For the purposes of this essay, however,
analyze Behn’s text using one theoretical approach. Your final draft should be properly
documented in MLA format and include a "Works Cited" page.
MA Theme Question: Death and Dying
Ever since Elizabeth Kubler-Ross published her study of the emotional stages for the dying
and their loved ones (On Death and Dying, 1969), there has been a wide dissemination of "the
five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance." Perhaps more
important than the therapeutic benefits of the emotional process Kubler-Ross outlined is her
"outing" death and dying in a youth-obsessed culture that prefers to avoid confronting thoughts
of mortality. As Kubler-Ross said, "It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us.
Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the
spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions
of who and what we are." Of course, that idea and the subject of death have been addressed in
literature throughout the millennia. When we read about death in literature, whether dramatized
or meditated on lyrically, there are several questions we can ask. Is death seen as a biological,
social, or metaphysical phenomenon? How is death represented and why did the author choose
that way to represent it? Does death as subject function only on a literal level, or is there also a
metaphorical level? If a metaphor, of what? And how can we theorize the representation of
characters going through the five stages of grief?
Using three texts from diverse time periods and traditions, write a critically and theoretically
informed essay that explores the theme of death and dying. At least one of these texts must be
British and at least one must be American; at least one text must be from a period before 1800
and at least one must be from a period after 1800. Focusing on the question’s theme of death and
dying, situate the three selected texts within their respective time periods and the literary
traditions from which they have emerged.
Successful responses provide thoughtful and coherent readings of the literary works. Less
successful responses may show an obvious difference in the amount of attention offered to each
text and may settle for readings that skim the surface.
Remember that this essay is a theoretical/research endeavor and, as such, should demonstrate
familiarity with a body of critical and theoretical writings as well as your chosen primary texts.
Your essay must have an analytically sophisticated thesis and employ secondary sources on the
texts you use. Your final draft should be properly documented in MLA format and include a
“Works Cited” page.
M.A. Exam Poetry Question
You are to choose ONE of the following two poems and write an analysis of it. “Broom” was
published by American poet Henri Cole (1956- ) in 2011; “Terminal Nostalgia” by American poet
Sherman Alexie (1966- ), was also published in 2011.
Your analysis should consist of a unified interpretation of the poem drawing directly upon its
constitutive elements. Among the elements that you might choose to discuss are imagery, structure,
figurative language, tone, formal qualities (including syntax, stanza, and lineation), rhythm, and sound.
Your answer will be judged on the coherence of your overall interpretation as well as your insight into
how various aspects of the poem enable that interpretation.
Broom
by Henri Cole
A starkly lighted room with a tangy iron odor;
a subterranean dankness; a metal showerhead hanging from the ceiling;
a scalpel, a trocar, a pump; a white marble table; a naked, wrinkled
body faceup on a sheet, with scrubbed skin, clean nails,
and shampooed hair; its mouth sewn shut, with posed lips;
its limbs massaged, its arteries drained, its stomach and intestines emptied;
a pale blue sweater, artificial pearls, lipstick, and rouge;
hands that once opened, closed, rolled, unrolled, rerolled, folded, unfolded,
turned, and returned, as if breathing silver, unselfing themselves now
(very painful); hands that once tore open, rended, ripped,
served, sewed, and stroked (very loving), pushing and butting now
with all their strength as their physiognomy fills with firming fluid;
hands once raucous, sublime, quotidian—now strange, cruel, neat;
hands that once chased me gruesomely with a broom, then brushed my hair.
Terminal Nostalgia
by Sherman Alexie
The music of my youth was much better
Than the music of yours. So was the weather.
Before Columbus came, eagle feathers
Detached themselves for us. So did the weather.
During war, the country fought together
Against all evil. So did the weather.
The cattle were happy to be leather
And made shoes that fit. So did the weather.
Before Columbus came, eagle feathers
Were larger than eagles. So was the weather.
Every ball game was a double-header.
Mickey Mantle was sober. So was the weather.
Before Adam and Eve, an Irish Setter
Played fetch with God. So did the weather.
Before Columbus came, eagle feathers
Married Indians. So did the weather.
Indians were neither loaners nor debtors.
Salmon was our money. So was the weather.
Back then, people wrote gorgeous letters
And read more poetry. So did the weather.
On all issues, there was only one dissenter,
But we loved him, too. So did the weather.
Before Columbus came, eagle feathers
Gave birth to eagles. So did the weather.
We all apprenticed to wise old mentors
And meditated for days. So did the weather.
We were guitar-players and inventors
Of minor chords and antibiotics. So was the weather.
Every person lived near the city center
And had the same income. So did the weather.
Before Columbus, eagle feathers
Lived in the moment. So did the weather.