Principles of Literary Study, Spring 2019
Essay #1 on Beloved
The goal of this assignment is for you to produce a close reading of a small piece of Toni Morrison’s Beloved in a 5-7 page essay. As we have discussed in class, this is a novel of memory fragments that are stitched into whole cloth as the novel progresses. Almost every time the novel returns to a fragment, it gives us more information than the last time. Very frequently, it also deploys time and perspective in new ways. Tracking just one of these memory fragments across the entire novel, your essay must explain the relation between narrative form and the meaning of the story told by your fragment. Examples of some fragments that might work well include: the story attached to Paul D’s tobacco tin, Schoolteacher’s notebook, the diamond earrings, or Sethe’s breast milk. There are, of course, many more possibilities: the choice is up to you.
You must hand in two different documents: the essay and your notes.
At a minimum, your notes should indicate most if not all of the instances that your fragment appears in the novel and include answers to “who sees” and “who speaks” questions you find relevant—don’t forget the litany of questions you can ask to follow up on these. You may also want to include some thought about time and plotting in your notes.
Your essay should be well written. It does not necessarily need to move sequentially from one example to the next, nor does it need to cover every instance. Like any good story, your essay will need a plot. You will likely want to group several instances together. You may decide you want to focus more on changes in narrative voice, for instance, than on the fragment itself. The narrative choices Morrison made with this novel are devious and puzzling. Explain a few of them well. You should aim to be both thorough and insightful.
Requirements and Tips:
- Your essay should be double-spaced, 1 inch margins, 12 point font. We suggest Times or Garamond.
- Your notes can be single-spaced and you can use whatever margins or formatting works for you.
- Give your essay a title.
- Parenthetical citation is fine—just a page number in parenthesis after quotes.
- Provide a thematically rich and significant thesis statement. Usually, your thesis will be the last sentence or two of your introductory paragraph.
- Work on developing strong topic sentences that explicitly articulate the claim or insight of a particular paragraph and serve as supporting parts or stages of your overall argument.
- Quote. Your essays need to provide examples demonstrating your points. They also need to be enlivened by drawing your readers into the stories you have to tell about the works of fiction.
- Reread. And reread again. At least sixty percent of the time you devote to this essay should be spent re-reading. Keep asking yourself “what else?” and “where else?” Try to get as rich and inclusive interpretation of the novel as possible. Don’t settle for a single telling quotation, but find others that are like it that can be used for elaboration, clarification, and qualification.
- Search for the nuances. Your responses should not fall into either/or categorizations, but rather should focus on subtle differences or surprising similarities. We would be as happy to see you open up a problem that cannot be solved as to settle conclusively on an interpretation that fails to admit of its limits.
- Bring some energy to your writing. Tell a good story, back it up with evidence from the text, and don’t assume that there is a right answer to any of it. Show your thought and provide evidence for it.
- Be aware that plagiarism will not be tolerated. Properly cite all sources. A useful overview of the policy at Rutgers can be found here: http://wp.rutgers.edu/courses/plagiarism.
MY GRADING SCALE FOR THE FALL SEMESTER, COMPOSED ENTIRELY OF SAMUEL BECKETT QUOTES.
BY MATT BELL
[Originally published August 31, 2012. McSweeney’s, http://bit.ly/10jVdxU]- A. There is a little of everything, apparently, in nature, and freaks are common. Yes, there were times when I forgot not only who I was but that I was, forgot to be. Nothing matters but the writing. Each must find out for himself what is meant. It means what it says. I cannot imagine a higher goal for today’s writer. What is that unforgettable line? If I do not love you I shall not love.
- The earth makes a sound as of sighs. To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now. Not to want to say, not to know what you want to say, not to be able to say what you think you want to say, and never to stop saying, or hardly ever, that is the thing to keep in mind, even in the heat of composition. The absurdity of those things, on the one hand, and the necessity of those others, on the other. You must say words, as long as there are any. Be reasonable, you haven’t yet tried everything. Any fool can turn a blind eye but who knows what the ostrich sees in the sand.
- C. We wait. We are bored. Confusion amounting to nothing. Despite precautions. The confusion is not my invention. You must not think of certain things, of those that are dear to you, or rather you must think of them, for if you don’t there is the danger of finding them, in your mind, little by little. A disturbance into words, a pillow of old words. All life long, the same questions, the same answers. The churn of stale words in the heart again. The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. This tired abstract anger; inarticulate passive opposition. I pushed and pulled in vain, the wheels would not turn. How hideous is the semicolon.
- D. It’s so nice to know where you’re going, in the early stages. It almost rids you of the wish to go there. There is man in his entirety, blaming his shoe when his foot is guilty. Don’t wait to be hunted to hide. What a joy to know where one is, and where one will stay, without being there. You’re wiser but not sadder, and I sadder but not wiser. I don’t understand how it can be endured.
- E. Your mind, never active at anytime, is now even less than ever so. All I heard was a kind of rattle, unintelligible even to me who knew what was intended. I can’t go on, I’ll go on: You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson. To every man his little cross. Till he dies. And is forgotten.
- F. Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful. So all things limp together for the only possible. In the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. I forgive nobody. Nothing to do but stretch out comfortably on the rack, in the blissful knowledge you are nobody for eternity. All I say cancels out, I’ll have said nothing. Words are all we have. Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. To restore silence is the role.
