Principles of Literary Study Section 15
Essay!
LOGISTICS
PROMPT CHOICE DUE: Oct. 26. (Indicate on post or in class that day; I will record your choice).
ESSAY DUE: Any time between Nov. 1 and Nov. 15 to Canvas. Need a hard deadline within this
range? Be in touch and we will set one up for you.
GRADE: 15% or 25% of final grade. (25% goes to your highest paper grade).
CONNECTION TO POSTS: You can incorporate your discussion posts on either of these authors;
you can use general thoughts about literary form from pre-midterm posts, but those ideas would
be revised here to create a coherent paper on either Rankine or Han’s work.
STYLE: MLA style citations with works cite (guide is on Canvas); 4-5 pages (4 full pages minimum)
not counting works cited page; double spaced 12-pt Times New Roman font; paginated with last
name in upper right corner; please spend time thinking about your title, which should introduce
your claim/perspective, not just the topic.
PROMPTS
Prompts for Rankine
R1
Rankine’s poetry is defined by its refusal of formal boundaries tacitly shaping “lyric poetry.” In
your reading, how does the way Rankine draw so many discourses and media into her poetry
work to interrogate racist (sometimes intersecting with gendered) injustice?
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You might substitute the verb “interrogate” for another specific action, based on where
your close readings lead you. In any case, your analysis should demonstrate what this
“interrogation” or other action looks like, what it’s apparent effects or stakes may be.
When citing Rankine’s use of a particular kind of textual form or source, you should be as
precise and specific as possible in your analysis. (For example, what does that specific
kind of incorporation suggest)?
You can cite from all of the Rankine we’ve read.
R2
In Citizen, Rankine relates a story involving the philosopher Judith Butler. She paraphrases
Butler’s answer to a question about “what makes language hurtful” (50): “Our very being
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exposes us to the address of another, [Butler] answers. We suffer from the condition of being
addressable. Our emotional openness, she adds, is carried by our addressability” (50).
Considering how Butler’s theory relates to racist language specifically, Rankine says: “Language
that feels hurtful is intended to exploit all the ways that you are present” (50). Use these ideas as
a springboard for answering the following question: how do Rankine’s forms of address relate to
her work’s concern with racism and white supremacy?
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You might consider how the speaker and the addressee in Rankine’s work lend form to
her the concept of citizenry, social collectives, collectives of solidarity among
marginalized groups, friendships and other relations—all different scales of social bodies
Rankine is interested in—that take shape under the conditions of white supremacy.
Reminder: Be so so so specific and thorough when you begin to analyze a particular
moment of address, and gradually grow that analysis into a bridge to your larger set of
stakes.
You may cite from any of her work that we’ve read, in Citizen (mostly second person,
interestingly!), or in “what if,” or in “josé martí.”
Prompts for The Vegetarian: either may address the film adaptation in one of its paragraphs, but
the focus will be on the novel.
V1
In your reading, how does the cipher-like form of The Vegetarian—with its three distinct
narrators relating the protagonist, who rarely speaks and never commands the narrative
perspective—relate to a thematic concern you see in the novel?
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Examples of such themes might include voice, violence, agency, the body, or others; ask
me if you have a particular interest.
The premise of this question is that there is a relationship. Your paper’s thesis will need
to involve a more specific verb than “relate”: undermine, echo, give structure to,
highlight,
whatever your close readings together suggest to you.
If you focus on one narrative to the exclusion of others, your argument should make a
clear case for why you are doing so; in other words, that focus should be related to your
claim.
Don’t forget to explicitly articulate what’s at stake—the so-what—of your argument.
You might be inspired by Jiayang Fan here, when she says of Han’s body of work: “For
Han, the project of writing is, like translation, a kind of unearthing: she must exhume
these buried feelings, and return a sense of agency both to her fictional characters and to
those whose lives inspire them.” Does the structure of the narration in The Vegetarian do
this work of translation as unearthing? Is this novel suggesting a depth model of
character and theme, which can be dug up and revealed? If so, on behalf of whom? Is a
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“sense of agency” returned? (By contrast, I sometimes find the novel to lay out a terrain
that one can only walk around, not dive into).
V2
Fan refers to The Vegetarian as both a “parable” (about “quiet resistance and its consequences”)
and “fable-like in structure.” The idea seems to suggest that The Vegetarian, amidst its shifting
perspectives and its protagonist’s descent (or ascent?) into mental instability and a would-be
inhuman form, conveys a sort of moral lesson. Explore this possibility by writing an argument in
response to the following question: what moral or ethical relations does The Vegetarian suggest
do and should bind people together? Given Yeong-hye’s resistance to living as a human, does the
novel avow conditions of possibility for living an ethical life with others?
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Though the question only lightly addresses form, you’ll need to find at least three
passages to close read to discover and support your answer.
You may want to address what your answer suggests about the stakes of literary form; no
matter what, you’ll need to link your answer to a larger set of stakes drawn out from your
analysis.
Your answer will have to use your analysis to define what you mean by “ethical relations”
and the barriers preventing or conditions necessary to sustain them.
RUBRIC:
All papers should have introductions that introduce the text, author, key terms that will be
activated into a premise and then an argument. Conclusions can take various forms, as we’ll
discuss in class. Other expectations are broken down by grade range below:
A-range:
Thesis and close reading: An original, complex thesis that is 1) articulated in a thesis statement
answering a complex how question incorporating literary form and thematic concepts, with
stakes of argument made explicit and 2) requires support of thorough, specific, and analytical
close reading directed to the thesis. The thesis and close reading may be sparked by class
discussions or posts, but are ultimately the representations of much nuanced and reflective
thinking.
Structure: The structure uses the organization of close readings to advance an increasingly
important and complex thesis, e.g. through careful topic and concluding sentences, transitions
and signposts.
Style: clear writing (especially subjects, action verbs) supporting independent authorial voice
(you sound like your most polished self); proofreading evident.
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B-range:
Thesis and close reading: A clear thesis that draws form and theme together, but with less
control/clarity that creates the independent insight in A-level, and with less clarity about what’s
stake. (This can mean the thesis is either too general and thus not a claim, or is too narrow).
Close readings demonstrate literary analysis, but with less independent insight garnered from
specific, thorough, analytical and directed close reading of A-paper.
Structure: The organization is logical, but in a “list” format where ideas are largely rearrangeable.
(The less this list-format is the case across the paper, the higher the B; the more it’s the case, the
lower the B).
Style: clear writing, but lack of precision about ideas may be evident at sentence level;
proofreading evident.
C-range:
Thesis and close reading: thesis does not evidence concept of “claim,” may over-summarize or
over-generalize – i.e. remain vague. Close readings are general and more invested in summary or
generalization than analysis.
Structure: ineffective use of paragraphs or sequencing; close readings in paragraph may not link
up to claim, or may not align with thesis statement in intro.
Style: unclear, proofreading not evident.
Grade breakdowns:
Letter grade Percentage
A
89.5% to 100%
B+
86.5% to 89.4%
B
79.5% to 86.4%
C+
76.5% to 79.4%
C
69.5% to 76.4%
Not passing Below 69.4%
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