II. Short Essays (35+35 points)Directions: Choose TWO of the following prompts and write for 45 minutes to an hour on eachone (1.5 to 2 hours total). You should use quotes and mention details from our course texts insupport of your statements. Be sure to indicate the number of your chosen prompts.1. In The Handbook of Literature (7th ed.) the entry on tragedy explains how,traditionally, The tragic impulse celebrates courage and dignity in the face of defeat andattempts to portray the grandeur of the human spirit. Evaluate how well or how poorlyONE of the following characters, in their way of meeting a tragic fate, exemplifiescourage and dignity in the face of defeat: Antigone, Creon, Oroonoko or Othello.2. Every narrator is a sort of filter on the readers perception of the story. But if we gofurther to say that a narrator is unreliable, it means that we are meant to question thenarrators biases and blind spots, and that such questioning will lead us to deepermeanings in the text. Choosing one of the following narrators, let us know at least onegood reason to be skeptical about their point of view, and also what we may learn fromsuch skepticism: Odysseus (in Books 9-12 of The Odyssey), Tassey Conde in Sundiata,or the narrator of Oroonoko (not Behn herself).3. A classic technique in drama is the use of secondary characters as foils for the maincharacters. Explain how ONE of the following secondary characters serve to reveal thequalities or values of a main character: Virgil as a foil for Dante in Divine Comedy,Emilia as a foil for Desdemona in Othello, Iago as a foil for Othello, Ismene as a foil forAntigone, Sumaworo as a foil for Sundiata, or Guinevere as a foil for the MysteriousLady in Lanval.4. Because in patriarchal societies men generally held the levers of power, women of strongwill have had to find subversive, secretive and indirect means of exerting influence.Explain how ONE of the following characters exercises her will as a form of femininesubversionthat is, as a way to circumvent male dominance: Antigone, Bisclavretswife, Eve in Genesis 3, Penelope, Do Kamissa (the Buffalo Woman in Sundiata), orGuinevere in Lanval.5. While a characters main motivation may be clear, in a rounded characterization there areoften other, hidden motives at play as well. We can sometimes understand a charactersactions better in the light of an ulterior motive than according to the motive theyproclaim. Speculate on a hidden or ulterior motive in ONE of the following characters,and show how that other motive better accounts for one or more of the charactersactions: Iago (assuming his main motive is to replace Cassio as Othellos lieutenant),Odysseus (assuming his main motive is to return home), Antigone (assuming her mainmotive is to bury her brother), Dante (assuming his main motive is to save his soul), orOronooko (assuming his main motive is to gain freedom).6. Terrences famous epigram, Nothing human is alien to me, is one of the watchwords ofhumanism. Indeed, one of literatures functions, especially in modern times, is to expandour understanding of our fellow human beings, howsoever their circumstances andchoices differ from our own. All of the following characters commit awful, destructiveacts, and yet it is possible to understand their motives even as we denounce their deeds.Please choose ONE of the following guilty characters and explain why they harmedothers from their point of view: Creon (desecrated Polynices body and condemnedAntigone), Othello (murdered Desdemona), Oroonoko (murdered Imoinda), Cain(murdered his brother Abel), or Odysseus (murdered all of the suitors at Ithaca as well asthe servant women who laid with them). Let us know, too, whether or not your chosencharacter deserves sympathy.
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