Discuss the way one of the texts we have read or will read this semester uses an aspect of the literary imagination to develop and present its protagonist’s subjectivity in relation to their

You are expected to write 4 – 5 double-spaced pages (in 12 pt. Times New Roman font) with
1-inch margins. You are expected to generate your own focused thesis within the parameters
set by one of the three questions below.
Your essay must address and/or draw upon one ‘literary’ text (Thompson, Bechdel, Joyce,
Baldwin, Wiesel, Pax, King, Minghella, or Rushdie) covered during the first semester of our
course, and it may but does not have to address and/or draw upon one theoretical text
covered during the first semester of our course (Plato or Bakhtin).
Please note that this is not a research paper but you may use some secondary material. If
you do choose to draw upon secondary material, make sure you quote and cite it correctly, and please be aware that, in an essay as short as ours, it is very easy for research/secondary
material to overwhelm your discussion. Always be aware that the analysis of your primary
text ought to be your main focus, and it should thus take up the bulk of your discussion.
The Essay Questions
In his essay “Discourse in the Novel,” the literary critic and theorist Mikhail Bakhtin argues
that “[t]he novel can be defined as a diversity of social speech types (sometimes even
diversity of languages) and a diversity of individual voices, artistically organized.” Discuss
the way one of the literary texts we have read or will read this semester organizes a
multiplicity of voices/discourses and the purpose of this organization. (So, for example, you
may want to think about the way Thompson himself may be a source of different discourses
that go into showing the impact of the Derby upon the individual psyche; or you may want to
think about the way Minghella shows Tom Ripley’s criminality as related to the way he
absorbs or performs others’ voices and subjectivities to make up for a certain kind of
emptiness at the core of who he is.)
– OR –
Discuss the way one of the texts we have read or will read this semester uses an aspect of the
literary imagination to develop and present its protagonist’s subjectivity in relation to their
world and the people they share this world with. (So, for example, you may want to think
about the way Bechdel uses intertextuality to explore Alison’s sexuality or her relationship
with her father; or you may want to think about the way Thomas King draws upon a mix of
historical narrative, personal anecdote, and creation stories to explore the way an Indigenous
subject may relate to broader, non-Indigenous Canadian or Western cultures.)
– OR –
In Book VII of the Republic, Plato uses the allegory of the cave to illustrate the “truth” about the
cosmos. Discuss the way one of the literary texts we have read or will read this semester uses
literary imagination to unfold the “truth” of their lives, society, politics, or world. (Think of
how Thompson uses gonzo journalism to reveal the “truth” about journalism; or how
Bechdel uses memory and literature to approach Bruce’s “true” self).