NOTE:   If you experience any problems printing out this project sheet, pick up a hard copy from the box outside my office. 

PROJECT #2

DUE:  No later than 5:00 p.m. on Friday, November 1.
           (Drop your pocket folder in the ENGL 2100H box outside my office.)

Your assignment is to compose a thoughtful, well-supported, clearly organized, rhetorically effective, and grammatically sound response to one of the eight topics below. 

A FEW TIPS
Get an early start.   Review your class notes and the notes on our web site.   Read--and re-read--the texts you'll be working with.   Find specific details ("Show me") that support your main ideas ("So what?").   Get something on paper--no matter how sloppy and disorganized it may be at first.  If you can't come up with an introduction, don't wait for inspiration: jump into the middle.   Keep in mind that you're writing for someone who has already read the texts: don't summarize.  You're not required   to show me a draft--but why not take advantage of the free service?  You may drop a draft off at my office or send me one via e-mail: I'll make every effort to return my comments to you within 24 hours.   If you wish, you may also schedule an appointment to discuss your draft with me in person.  (As always, keep track of the NEWS and NOTES pages on this web site for additional advice regarding all assignments--including this course project and my availability for conferences.)  In any case, the last possible day I'll be available to review and comment on drafts is TUESDAY, OCTOBER  29th.   After that, you should be editing and proofreading. 

RULES OF THE ROAD
Although I'm not encouraging the use of outside or secondary sources for this project, I'm not forbidding them either.  You must, of course, cite any sources (textual or otherwise--and that includes the Internet and your mother) that you do rely on.  You're more than welcome, of course, to consult with me and with the tutors in the Writing Center for help in organizing your thoughts and revising your paper.  If you have any questions about what constitutes an "outside source," please check with me; any violation of this policy will be considered a violation of the AASU Honor Code.

REVISING & EDITING
As you revise your essay, be guided by the format sheet that has been posted to this course site and that was also handed out in class.  In addition, be sure to reserve plenty of time for careful editing: if your first project was marked down for errors of grammar, punctuation, or mechanics, your second project will be marked down even more severely if you repeat the same kinds of errors.  (In other words, the point is to show evidence that you've learned from your mistakes.)   The final version of your paper must be word processed and MUST INCLUDE A SELF-EVALUATION, as follows.  At the end of your project, respond briefly yet specifically to these three questions:

1. What part of your project do you think is most effective?

2. What part of your project (or which stage in its composition) gave you the most difficulty?

3. What is your overall evaluation of your work for this project? 
(NOTE: This last question does not ask you to assign a grade to your project.)

Projects submitted without a self-evaluation will be considered incomplete and will be graded accordingly.

SUBMITTING YOUR WORK
Submit your project in a pocket folder (make sure that your name is on the outside of the folder) : final version on top, with rough drafts and the graded copy of project #1 below.  An essay submitted without any rough drafts will be treated as a draft and graded accordingly.   You may drop the folder off in the carton outside my office any time before 5:01 p.m. on Friday, November 1.

__________________TOPICS FOR PROJECT #2_________________

1.  SMILEY GOES TO HOLLYWOOD   

When an interviewer asked Jane Smiley her opinion of the Hollywood adaptation of A Thousand Acres, she responded as follows:

JS: I wasn't at all involved, but I thought they did a pretty good job given the uncongeniality of the material. They ran up against the same problems that everybody runs up against when they try to put up a version of King Lear.  
Jessica Lange was recently in a production of TITUS ANDRONICUS --- that is dark. And to do Shakespeare plays is always a difficult effort and Hollywood doesn't like to do things that are not going to be commercially successful. The audience for a serious large-scale contemplation is very small, and especially with a large-scale depressing contemplation of something, they always regret having done it.  The only possible success is to win an Academy Award. But even that is no guarantee. Hollywood is a sad place if you're looking for something deep and interesting. From the filmmaker's point of view, if you don't win an Academy Award, then there is no reward for doing a serious project like that. So you can only have one Saving Private Ryan and one Schindler's List and it's like whistling in the dark.  (bookreporter.com)

In an essay of roughly 1,200 to 1,500 words, examine some of the specific ways in which Smiley's novel has been altered, simplified, trivialized, and/or sentimentalized in the film  version of A Thousand Acres.   Because your audience for this project has already read the novel and viewed the film, you don't need to belabor obvious points regarding changes to the plot.   Instead, consider how our experience and understanding of Smiley's major themes are affected by such factors as the altered point of view in the film, the sacrifice of informative details about characters and setting, the intrusion of a manipulative soundtrack, and so on.  Your purpose is not to criticize the film simply for being a film, but--in effect--to use the film as a foil to examine the comparative richness of Smiley's novel.
(See me to borrow a videotape of A Thousand Acres.)

______________

2.  Lear with a Past   

In an interview, Akira Kurosawa commented on one of his motives in adapting King Lear:

What has always troubled me about King Lear is that Shakespeare gives his characters no past.  We are plunged directly into the agonies of their present dilemmas without knowing how they came to this point.  How did Lear acquire the power that, as an old man, he abuses with such disastrous effects?   Without knowing his past, I have never really understood the ferocity of his daughters' response to Lear's feeble attempts to shed his royal power.  In Ran I have tried to give Lear a history.  I try to make clear that his power must rest upon a lifetime of bloodthirsty savagery.  Forced to confront the consequences of his misdeeds, he is driven mad.  But only by confronting his evil head-on can he transcend it and begin to struggle again toward virtue.  (Grilli interview)

In various interviews, Jane Smiley has also commented on her interest in the history of the characters in Shakespeare's King Lear:

"I'd always felt that the way Lear was presented to me was wrong.   Without being able to articulate why, I thought Goneril and Reagan got the short end of the stick.  There had to be some reason [Lear's] daughters were so angry.   Shakespeare would attribute their anger to their evil natures, but I don't believe people in the Twentieth Century think evil exists without cause."  (Smiley, qtd. by Schiff, 1998)

"That's the thing my work is always wrestling with: what do we make of the past?  How do we get away from the past?  How does the past hurt us?    How do we find a way not to be tyrannized over by the past?" (Smiley, interview with Bill Goldstein. 1998)

In an essay of roughly 1,200 to 1,500 words, compare and contrast the ways (and, more importantly, the purpose, effects, and effectiveness of the ways) that Kurosawa (in Ran) and Smiley (in A Thousand Acres) create a sense of personal and social history in their distinctive adaptations of the Lear story.  Because your audience for this project has already viewed Kurosawa's film, read the novel, and studied Shakespeare's tragedy, you don't need to belabor obvious points regarding the plots of these works.  Instead, consider how our perceptions of the central characters and our experiences of the central themes are altered through the histories created by Kurosawa and Smiley. 
(The videotape of Ran is available from Lane Library.)
__________________

3.  Roles of Women in Patriarchal Cultures   

Patriarchal cultures generally maintain that women--mothers, wives, daughters--are supposed to be nurturing and self-sacrificing to no end.  In an essay of roughly 1,200 to 1,500 words, examine, compare, and contrast the characterizations of Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia in King Lear with their counterparts in Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres.  Consider the strengths and weaknesses dramatized in these characters, and examine how they are presented sympathetically or unsympathetically (or both).

__________________

4.  Two Tragic Heroes

In an essay of roughly 1,200 to 1,500 words, examine, compare and contrast the characterization of King Lear in Shakespeare's tragedy with that of the Duchess in Webster's play.  Consider to what extent each embodies (or fails to embody) the characteristics of "a tragic hero."  Examine their values, their strengths and weaknesses, the kinds of mortifications each experiences (as well as the effects of those mortifications), the transformations of their characters during the course of the plays--and our altered perceptions of each character by the end of each play.  

___________________

5.  Major Roles of Minor Characters

In an essay of roughly 1,200 to 1,500 words, examine, compare and contrast the roles served by any two or three of the secondary characters in King Lear (e.g., Edgar, the Fool, Albany, Cornwall, France) with their counterparts in either Kurosawa's Ran or Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres.  Because your audience for this project has already studied Shakespeare's tragedy, viewed Kurosawa's film, and read Smiley's novel, you don't need to belabor obvious points regarding the characters' backgrounds or actions.  Instead, focus on the values that you perceive to be embodied by these characters, their functions as foils (i.e., how they help to bring out characteristics of major characters), and how their speeches and actions contribute to our understanding of the themes of the works in which they appear. 

____________________

6.  Pure Evil?

In an essay of roughly 1,200 to 1,500 words, examine, compare and contrast the characters of the Cardinal, Ferdinand, and Bosola in Webster's The Duchess of Malfi.   What appears to motivate each of these characters?  How does their use of language help to reveal their peculiar natures?  Does there appear to be any justification and/or plausible explanation for their various behaviors?  Are all three static characters (i.e., do they remain essentially the same from beginning to end)?  How do you explain Bosola's transformation in Act Five, where he acts to revenge the crime that he committed in Act Four?  Finally, what does a careful examination of these characters suggest about the nature of evil (at least from Webster's viewpoint) and the central theme of the tragedy?

_____________________

7.  Productions of King Lear

Our perception of any play (and of the characters in any play) is affected (in obvious ways--and in ways that are not so obvious) by the particular production that we see.   Everything from stage sets to actors' performances influence our understanding of--and emotional response to--the play.  In an essay of roughly 1,200 to 1,500 words, examine, evaluate. compare, and contrast any two film versions of Shakespeare's King Lear.  Because your audience for this project has already seen the films, you don't have to belabor the obvious (lines that have been cut, scenes that have been altered); instead. focus on some of the more subtle aspects of each production: not so much what is done differently but more importantly the effects of those differences. 
(Three different versions of Lear are available on videotape from Lane Library--or check with me to borrow my copies.)

_____________________

8.  A TOPIC OF YOUR OWN

You may fashion a topic of your own for this project--a topic that focuses on particular elements of--or characters in--any two of the major works considered over the past few weeks: King Lear, Ran, A Thousand Acres, and The Duchess of Malfi.  The primary conditions are that (1) you must propose your topic to me via e-mail no later than Friday, October 18th, and (2) I then have to approve your topic and (if necessary) set some guidelines of my own.   If I don't hear from you by October 18, you'll be writing on one of the seven assigned topics above. 

return to PROJECTS

English 2100H is taught by Dr. Richard Nordquist.
Armstrong Atlantic State University
University Hall 297D
11935 Abercorn Street
Savannah, Georgia 31419
912-921-5991
e-mail: nordqudi@mail.armstrong.edu

 
20 October 2002

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