Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies
EN 122 MODES OF READING – First Assessed Essay – 2015-2016
Write an essay of approximately 3,500 words on one of the following topics. Essays MUST
be submitted electronically via TABULA by 12.00 noon on Tuesday 19th January 2016.
Note that this is a departmental, centrally-set deadline and extensions will be granted only for
very serious reasons. Any request for extension must be made in advance directly to the
Director of Undergraduate Studies and should normally be accompanied by a medical
certificate. Please make sure that you are aware of the departmental guidelines for the
presentation of essays and of the regulations on plagiarism (see ‘Useful Links’ box on the
Modes of Reading website).
1. Examine the ways in which Selvon's The Lonely Londoners could be said not only to
represent the processes of cultural contact and creolization, but also to enact them.
2. To what extent, and why, can we consider Selvon's The Lonely Londoners to be a
'postmodern' text, as Jameson understands that term?
3. "Throughout [The Lonely Londoners] the pleasures of migration, and the pleasures of the
city, are almost exclusively organized through the optic of male sexual desire" (Bill
Schwarz). Analyze the representation of gender and sexuality in Selvon's novel.
4. "The Negro of the Antilles will be proportionately whiter – that is, he will come closer to
being a real human being – in direct ratio to his mastery of the French language"
(Fanon). Discuss the relationship between language and race as this is presented in
Selvon's novel.
5. “Always, from the first time [Galahad] went [to Piccadilly Circus] to see Eros and the
lights, that circus have a magnet for him [. . .]. Every time he go there, he have the
same feeling like when he see it the first night, drink coca-cola, any time is guinness
time, bovril and the fireworks, a million flashing lights, gay laughter, the wide doors
of theatres, the huge posters, everready batteries [. . .]” (Lonely Londoners, p. 90).
Analyse the relationship between the landscape of the city and the perceptions and
embodied attitudes of Selvon's 'lonely Londoners'.
6. In “Commitment,” Sartre argues that “Committed art” aims not to “generate ameliorative
measures, legislative acts or practical institutions […] but to work at the level of
fundamental attitudes.” To what extent can we consider The Flamethrowers a novel
both about committed art and an example of committed art?
7. “As I wrote, events from my time, my life, began to echo those in the book, as if I were
inside a game of call and response” (Kushner). How could we read Kushner’s
description of the 1970s, and The Flamethrowers more broadly, as being about our
present moment?
8. “They say it is love. We say it is unwaged work. Neuroses, suicides, desexualization:
occupational diseases of the housewife.” (Fredrici). “”Screwing is a desperate
compulsive attempt to prove he’s not passive, not a woman; but he is passive and
does want to be a woman” (Solanas). The Flamethrowers is full of characters who
make shocking art and use shocking words and political actions in their attempts to
change society. Discuss the relationship between shock and social change in
Kushner’s novel.
9. The Flamethrowers moves from Nevada to New York, from Brazil to Italy. Develop an
argument analyzing the importance of these different geographic locations for the
larger themes of the novel.
10. Nicholas Miriello suggests that The Flamethrowers is a novel about “the deaf ears that
receive a woman’s mind, a woman’s ambition.” To what extent can we consider The
Flamethrowers a feminist novel and what kind of feminism does it put forward?