Long Essay Assignment
Winter 2003
American Lit. Post-45
Ingrid Fields
“Pullin’ Out Yo Literary Map1:”* An Interpretive Game in Two Parts
What’s is like to be the child of the Zeitgeist?
- Angels in America
Our seminar is rich with texts that demand our reconsideration of the ways in which
American literature represents postmodern concerns: how it constructs (and is constructed by),
conceives of, and represents significant changes in our epistemological perspective. In other
words, postmodernism offers a means of questioning how we know what we know, from
masternarratives to forms of representation. Part of that project has to do with determining
whose culture? which representations? and with which forms? How and why is identity
conceived of as integral to and in resistance to American culture(s)? The politics of
representation have real repercussions—and, as Hutcheon or Doctorow will note later this
term, we’re caught up in those politics even as we recognize their workings.
Where’s your literary/cultural sensibility in this world and its ideas? In this single long
analysis for the course, show us what you think literary interpretation has to offer in terms of
understanding these texts and their reflections of our world.
* Daniel Issacson in The Book of Daniel
Rules of the game: Please read the following requirements carefully. Your essay must meet
each these guidelines as specified, or it will not receive a passing grade. Request for
clarification if you’re not sure what is being asked of you.
A – Part one: Your essay will be an analytical reading of two primary texts. Focal texts
include: Invisible Man, “Recitatif”, Zoot Suit, The Woman Warrior, True West, Housekeeping,
“Howl,” and Angels in America. This discussion should demonstrate your ability to work with
the details of a text so as to understand them in relation to a larger issue, theme, pattern of
representation. Avoid generalities and unfulfilled logic in constructing your argument. And
don’t forget about the “so what?” factor in your own argument (see me if you’re not sure what
this is).
[Note: a close reading is more than simply quoting passages from the text. It’s what you do with that passage
that matters. Use a scene or passage as a representative map of the issues you’re discussing, then walk us through
the map. Tell us what’s important about it, how it relates to and develops your thesis, etc. Come see me now if
you have questions about literary readings.]
B - Part two: No matter what topic you choose, your essay must include (in a minor capacity)
an awareness of your position as author/critic, the politics and poetics of your act of
interpretation. This should be included within the primary discussion, the sort of postmodern
self-consciousness about narrative authority we’ve been discussing. This is not intended as a
“throw-away” consideration; use it to your advantage in the critical investigation of your
1
Daniel, in E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel.
discussion. (You can be as serious or playful with this as you wish: but I will read it seriously
as a requirement of your essay. Style points awarded, accordingly.)
C – Process: It should go without saying that this essay be the result of at least 3-4 major
drafts. It should be well-organized (detailed and focused), complex, and polished. I don’t
know many writers who can do that in a week, much less in a single all-nighter. (If you’ve
done it before, consider the odds of pulling it off again.) I suggest that you organize with other
students to work in writing groups, giving specific feedback toward revision. Let me know if
you want me to help you do this. Don’t forget that I’m around to offer feedback, too.
D – (for ‘Due Date’) two dates to note: full draft for a Required Peer Review, Wed. March 5.
Essay due in class Wed. March 19. It should be 10-14 pages, double spaced, titled, stapled,
etc. NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED, no matter what. Even if your computer
crashes, your hard copy is carried off by a ghost, or you lose your mind, you are still
responsible for meeting this deadline.
E – (for ‘Examples of’) Topic Material:
• The complex politics of representation in American cultures as expressed via questions of
racial/ethnic identity, gender, illusions of class boundlessness
• The compound or multiple identity
• Metaphors: invisibility, zoot suits, women warriors, ghosts, the wild west,
housekeeping, silence
• (De)Construction of authorial position, issues of narrative authority:
- cultural sources of / obstacles to authorial voice
- conflicts involved in authorizing narrative(s)
- the role of narrators or authorized voices within text
• History: questions about history as an epistemological form of knowledge: whose history,
whose voice, whose forms?
• Borrowings: biblical story, official histories and real incidents, memoir as history
• Playing games with narrative: the bounds of narrative representation: experimentation within
the novel as a means of exploring cultural (and textual) limitations
• talking story: myth and memoir
• narrative issued from underground
• dramatic play of narrative (via an agent like El Pachuco or an invisible man)
• inclusion/indictment of reader/audience in text
• Who told you you could use these topics?: I suggest that you begin not by looking at a list
like this one, but by going back to the texts with which interested you most. Look at the
scenes or passages that were important to you, and begin to investigate what they’re about.
F (for Finally) - I’m not above goading your business acumen as well as your intellectual
acumen: the English Program holds a contest for, among other things, the best expository
essay of the year. Cash prizes. If this piques your interest, so be it. Write a hot essay and keep
your eyes peeled for the Delcamp Essay contest in early May Term.
The GAME is on.