Colloquium: Dystopia Two

Your second essay should focus on either It Can’t Happen Here or The Handmaid’s Tale
Length: about 5 pages/1250 words
Draft due W 17 Oct; bring four (4) copies
Revision due W 24 Oct.
Optional further revision (after consultations) due F 9 Nov.

You will discuss your work in progress at two different points. You will meet with either Rachael Green (x 2718, <rgreen>) or Prof. Michel (x6389, <fmichel>) at least once in the preparation of the essay.
On the 17th, bring four copies of a full first draft (1250 words) to class. You will exchange drafts with classmates and give thoughtful feedback to one another.

Your revised draft will be due at the beginning of class on the 24th. You must attach to this draft the copies of your previous draft and your class reviewers’ comments.

You will also need to submit your essay electronically to Turnitin. class id# 1981460

The essay should have a clearly-stated thesis that takes account of both conceptual and stylistic aspects of the text and relates them to each other. The thesis should be supported through quotations from the text and through analytic discussion of quoted words, phrases, and sentences. More information on how to write an essay can also be found in guides to academic writing available in the Writing Center library and through these links:
http://www.willamette.edu/%7Efmichel/writing.htm
http://www.willamette.edu/%7Efmichel/dystopia.htm#links

Here are some possible topics. You are free to develop others. If you choose another topic, you must send me an email with a few sentences about your plans by 10/15. Note that these topics will not supply you with a thesis or a structure.

  How did this dystopia come about?  About what is the text warning its readers?  How did aspects of economic inequality, gender relations, religious practices, environmental damage, or other cultural or political factors influence the dystopic world?  What continuities are there between the dystopic and pre-dystopic societies represented in the novel?

 Who benefits from the dystopian society represented in the novel?  How do they benefit?  Note that those who are in charge of these societies are not necessarily happy, suggesting that these worlds may be not just better for some and worse for others, but better and worse for some of the same people.

  How does the ending of the novel shape its meaning?  In a reading of It Can’t Happen Here, consider the details of Doremus’s dream as well as the implications of the last line.  In a reading of The Handmaid’s Tale, examine the role of the “Historical Notes.” 

  What does the novel suggest about resistance or rebellion?  Who rebels against or resists the dominant social and political order?  What motivates their resistance?  What forms of resistance or rebellion take place in the novel, and what are the goals of such resistance or rebellion? 

 What’s the role of language or literature in the novel?  You might consider who is or isn’t allowed to read and why; how extracts from books, newspapers, or other documents function in the book;  how the dystopic regime uses language to deceive, influence, intimidate, or pacify citizens. How does propaganda serve to support or subvert the regime? 

  What’s the relation between the personal and the political, or the public and the private?  How are these boundaries erased or redrawn in the dystopian world?  How do romantic or sexual relationships constitute or undermine possibilities of resistance?

 In a reading of It Can’t Happen Here, analyze the role of historical allusions to contemporary fascisms (in Italy, Germany, or Louisiana). 

 In a reading of The Handmaid’s Tale, analyze the function of a particular pattern of imagery (for instance, colors, or, alternatively, night). 

 In a reading of The Handmaid’s Tale, analyze the function of Biblical allusions. 

 In a reading of The Handmaid’s Tale, analyze the role of the narrative structure.  To whom is Offred telling the story, and why?  Why is the narrative largely in present tense? 

In this paper, your purpose is to read and think carefully about an aspect of either It Can’t Happen Here or The Handmaid’s Tale and its political, social, or cultural implications.

Your readers, you should assume, have read the text, but they haven’t read it with the same questions in mind that you have, so they will most certainly expect you to provide examples from the texts and to give them a little context for remembering the place of those examples. Help your readers out by being careful, if you quote directly from the text, to explain what the quotation is meant to point to or argue or support. Tell your readers where they may read an example you’ve referred to in the original themselves, by putting page numbers in parentheses directly following.

Because you are writing an essay, there is no set organization, but you should certainly have an introduction and a conclusion! Between them you’ll organize your material to make the best case. Often writers want to move from the most obvious example to one that would have been harder to see if a pattern weren’t already in place. Or they move from least important to most important. Or one point really depends on a previous one and must, therefore, follow it. Once you’ve decided what your arguments are, you can best decide what order they belong in.

For this essay, support should probably come entirely from the primary text. (If you discuss Biblical or historical allusions, you will need to cite additional sources.) Quote sparingly, but refer to passages in the text through summary or paraphrase and cite the page numbers in parentheses. If you consult other sources, you must cite them as well. Provide full bibliographical citations for the novel and for any other sources you draw on in MLA style at the end of your paper. You may refer to Hacker for the form.

The English editing conventions for this essay are those of the scholarly world: you should write in a human voice (think of you at your best here!), but a scholarly human written voice. That means precise diction, carefully formed sentences, and no errors in grammar, punctuation, mechanics, or spelling. It is wise to get in the habit now of using a header for your first initial, last name, and page number. Do not produce a separate title page. Put your name, the course name, and the date top left; center the title (same font as the rest of the paper) below that; skip two lines, and let the essay follow (double-space your pages and leave 1” margins all round).

Excellent papers will have an engaging thesis, will not only notice textual details but also consider their meaning, and will reflect their writer’s attempt to get beyond “this is what I’ve always known and thought” reasoning. They will be persuasive partly because their examples are well chosen and well explained, and also because they are organized in a compelling sequence. They will use words carefully. They may even craft sentences elegantly!

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