English 3132, American Literature II

Dr. Richard Flynn

Fall 2003

Suggestions for paper topics:

Rather than be prescriptive, I'm offering the following fairly broad paper topics. If you wish to work on a topic of your own design, please talk to me about it. In any event, these topics offer you some latitude in choosing your texts.

1. A comparison of "expansive" vision (such as in Whitman or Twain) with a more restricted or interior vision (such as in Dickinson, James, or Gilman). You should recognize, however, that such characterizations are slippery at best.

2. An examination of some specific aspect of a one or more text's portrayal of the status of women or of women's concerns. Characters or works you may wish to think about are: Louisa in Freeman's "New England Nun," the narrator of Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper," Daisy Miller, May Bartram, Dickinson's poems.

3. Criticize or defend the ending (roughly the last 12 chapters) of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. You may wish to research the critical conversation concerning the ending in order to help you make your case. Is Huck complicitous in Tom's treatment of Jim? Does the fact or degree of his complicity or lack thereof change the way you read the ending and the novel as a whole?

4. In some sense the plots of "Daisy Miller" and The Beast in the Jungle" are similar. The protagonist (Winterbourne, Marcher) finds out the truth about his feelings for a woman (Daisy, May) too late. And yet, the stories seem very different by virtue of the differences between James's early and late styles. Compare the stories in order to determine what is gained and lost because of the different styles.

5. An examination of the role of religious belief or non-belief in one or more writers (for instance, Whitman, Dickinson, Twain).

6. In The Education of Henry Adams, Adams writes "in America neither Venus nor Virgin ever had value as force-at most as sentiment." Even American artists (with the exception of Whitman) had failed to represent the power of sex. Nevertheless, in the "Great Gallery of Machines" Adams feels "his historical neck broken by the sudden irruption of forces totally new." In what sense does the fact that American "society regarded this victory over sex to be its greatest triumph" contribute to its love growing love affair with technology? And how does this manifest itself in American literature?

Outside sources are not required for this paper, but if you use them, you are obliged to document them properly in the current MLA style.. The paper is due on October 13th. Feel free--feel encouraged--to discuss it with me at any time.

N.B. If you turn your paper in by October 8th, I will be able to tell you your grade on it on the 13th (the day before the last day to withdraw.