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Priscilla Meyer
408 Fisk Hall
X3127
pmeyer@wesleyan.edu
Russian 232 The Real McCoy: Constructing Identity
September
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Introduction
Read: Sophocles, “Oedipus Rex”; Freud, “The Oedipus Complex” (in the
Norton edition, pp. 69-72)
Write: If you were Oedipus, what questions would you have asked?
Oedipus, ambivalence, self-knowledge: your questions
Read: Gogol, “The Diary of a Madman,” “The Nose”
Write a paragraph: What sense can you make of “The Nose”?
“The Diary of a Madman,” “The Nose”
Modes of interpretation
Read: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part 1
Madame Bovary, Part 1
The hat; the cake
Read: Madame Bovary, through part 2, chapter 9
Madame Bovary, through part 2, chapter 9
Yonville; the agricultural fair: two different rhetorics
Read: Finish Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary: Why does the novel end with Homais?
Read: Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Write: PAPER #1
Emma and Homais (4 pp)
Pick specific passages from Madame Bovary as your basis for developing an
argument about how each character constructs his/her life. Start from words of
the text to figure out your argument, rather than plugging in passages to
“support” a general idea; work from the detail outwards; you will peer review
each other’s papers before handing in a second draft. Prepare to present your
results in class orally (3 minutes).
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PAPER #1 due in class (final draft due October 6th)
PEER REVIEW: exchange papers in class (use guidelines for review)
Your papers: listen carefully and see if you can make suggestions
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Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Why does Jekyll need Hyde?
Write: one question about Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde you want to tackle in our
next class. It can be one short sentence or you can develop your idea a bit in a
short paragraph.
October
1
Return peer reviewed papers to the authors
Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: your questions
Read: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, 1/4; track the uses of the words black
and white (note page numbers)
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PAPER #1 Final draft due in class, to be handed in together with the first
draft and the editor’s comments
The Golden Day: close reading
Read: Invisible Man, 1/4
Invisible Man: White paint, blindness
Read: Invisible Man, 1/4; e-mail a discussion topic idea to the group by
11:30PM October 12th
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13h
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Your topics
Finish Invisible Man 1/4
Invisible Man: the narrator’s fate: self-determined vs. socially determined
Read: Philip Roth, The Human Stain ¼
The Human Stain 1: What do we know so far about Coleman Silk?
Read: The Human Stain ¼; pick a passage to analyze in class (look up any
references in it that you don’t know and explain their relevance)
The Human Stain 2: your passages and annotations
Read: The Human Stain ¼
BREAK
The Human Stain 3: Delphine’s motives—whose interpretation?
Read: The Human Stain ¼
November
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The Human Stain 4: what does Nathan know and how does he know it?
Read: Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway 1/2
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Mrs. Dalloway: the characters’ identities
Read: Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway ½
Write: PAPER #2
PAPER #2 due in class (final draft due November 12th): Invisible Man and
Coleman Silk (4 pp); exchange papers with a different peer reviewer
Compare/contrast a particular aspect shared by the characters, using a scene, a
pair of characters, or a motif; what is Roth’s implicit commentary on Ellison’s
novel and its hero?
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Return peer reviewed papers to the authors
Mrs. Dalloway: constructing self
Read: Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight 1/2
PAPER #2 Final draft due in class, with first draft and editor’s
comments
Compare the brothers; the genre of the double
Read: Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight 1/2
Write: who wrote what novel?
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight: authorship
PAPER #3 (final draft due November 24th): do a motif study (see guidelines)
from RLSK or Mrs. Dalloway. Prepare to present your conclusions in class,
noting presentation guidelines (3 minutes)
PEER REVIEW: exchange papers in class with a new reviewer
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Return peer reviewed papers to the authors
Your presentations
Read: Alexander Hemon, The Lazarus Project, 1/3
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PAPER #3: Final draft due in class, with first draft and editor’s
comments
Alexander Hemon, The Lazarus Project, 1/3
The layering of time and place, fact and fiction
Read: Alexander Hemon, The Lazarus Project, 1/3
Thanksgiving
December
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Alexander Hemon, The Lazarus Project
Two intersecting worlds: history/fiction
Read: Alexander Hemon, The Lazarus Project, 1/3
The Lazarus Project
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Parallels: Lazarus/Brik; Kishinev/Sarajevo
Narratives: fact meets fiction
Read: Tom Stoppard, “The Real Inspector Hound”
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Two intersecting worlds
Write: who is McCoy?
Metaphysics: (who is?) the Real McCoy?
e-mail your proposal for your final paper to me by 5:00PM
Finale: aspects of identity and how it may be shaped
Term Paper due second day of exam week: Write a story in which the
protagonist’s identity/fate is determined by a mix of forces s/he is both aware
and unaware of. Use what you’ve learned about the telling detail (titles of books,
names of authors, motifs—color, etc.).
If you want my detailed comments, leave a hard copy in the plastic box outside
my office. Otherwise you may e-mail your story to pmeyer@wesleyan.edu with
the subject: STORY.
Response papers
After you finish reading each novel/story, you are asked to write an account of
your personal reading of it (1-2 pages), in addition to the other writing
assignments on this syllabus.
Attendance
A lot of the work of learning to think about these books gets done in our class
discussions. Your papers are a continuation of where class discussion leaves off.