From his early masque, Comus, to his prose pieces pertaining to the events surrounding the English Civil War, John Milton is often portrayed as a writer who was obsessed with the idea of reason, and how it could affect an individual’s choices. Literary scholars have long since debated the existence of certain instances in which a character’s reason affected the choices made in the text of Paradise Lost, for instance, Adam’s choice to eat the apple after Eve, or Satan’s decision to rebel against heaven and form his demon council in Hell. Scholars have also analyzed John Milton’s use of the literary device known as the Miltonic “or,” which offers differing choices of the meaning contained within the text, ultimately relying on the reader to choose for themselves, and by not emphasizing which item on either side of the “or” is preferred, Milton encourages the reader to engage in a rational interpretation of his poetry. In my paper, I will attempt to combine these two sides of the scholarly discussion on the topic of reason in Paradise Lost. By illustrating how reason is the driving force behind the events contained within the text, and how the reader’s own rational choices pertaining to the poems meaning, I will attempt to portray reason’s importance in Paradise Lost from a more complete perspective.

In my paper, I will begin by taking a more New Criticism approach in analyzing the text and the many instances in which the characters engage in rational thoughts and choices, and I will analyze the language and dialogue surrounding these instances. I will also examine the textual evidence and the precedent established by Milton when he created a rational God, and by illustrating the power of rationality and freewill in the poem, I will attempt to show how it made the fall of mankind possible.  By taking this more objective stance when observing the patterns of reason constructed within Paradise Lost, I will be able to portray reason’s function within the text to the reader. This New Criticism approach will also allow me to illustrate the importance of the Miltonic “or,” and how it is used to create moments of choice for the reader of the poem. Along with New Criticism, I will also include a Historicist analysis in my paper, and I will detail the events surrounding the creation of the poem and how this could have affected John Milton and his work. I will mention that many scholars believe this poem has direct references to the English Civil War and the Restoration of Charles II, a time when Milton often questioned the reasoning of his fellow countrymen. After watching what he believed to be the start of a new country, one free from the monarch and governed by reason, crumble shortly after its inception, one can easily imagine that many of the moments of rationality contained within this epic are direct commentary on the events surrounding this time period. When I combine these two forms of reason, the textual instances and the active reasoning produced by the reader, and analyze the text through the lens of New Criticism and Historicism, I hope to produce a paper that paints reason as the crucial force behind John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

My paper will synthesize those two subjects and discuss the tensions between the Christian religion and King Arthur’s court. Gawain is presented as both a brave knight and a devout Christian, but he ultimately fails his trial. The court’s shallowness contrasts with Gawain’s growth throughout the poem. The court’s expectations for his behavior are not as high as his own are for himself, and this shows the discrepancy between the Christian moral code and that of chivalry. I would like to draw from Richard Newhauser’s and most particularly Phillipa Hardman’s discussion of Christian morality in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Newhauser discusses precisely what sin Gawain committed in accepting the green girdle from Lady Bertilak and its seriousness, to clarify the situation and Gawain’s moral lesson. Hardman’s discussion shows the shallowness of Gawain’s and the court’s Christianity, especially in reference to their superstitious devotions. In my discussion of Arthur’s court, I would like to draw from Wendy Clein’s book, which discusses chivalry in detail. I would particularly like to draw upon a medieval account of a knight’s contradictory obligations and extend that discussion, since it is glossed over in Clein’s work. I might also draw from Victoria Weiss’ essay about medieval chivalry as a pretense.

I would like to use this project to synthesize two large subjects in this field of
study. Both Christianity and chivalry are integral to the work, and I would like to examine
the interplay between the two. Gawain accepts the knight’s challenge at the beginning,
which takes him away from Arthur’s court and allows him to grow as a person, away from
the court’s stifling rituals, which do not allow serious moral reflection (as seen by Arthur’s
insistance on moving past the mysterious knight’s interuption.) While Gawain grows,
Arthur’s court does not and dismisses his lesson about his moral failure as
inconsequential. Through this story, the Pearl Poet shows the court’s shallowness and
chivalry’s failure as a moral code.

My paper will research the effects of structure in House of Leaves and how it informs the book’s idea of storytelling. The text’s unorthodox methods of narrative and typography create a literary labyrinth that reflects the labyrinth that lies within the house of The Navidson Record, which is the primary subject of the book. This labyrinthian structure also represents the struggle of the many characters, whether it is Will Navidson, Zampanò, Johnny Truant, Truant’s mother, or Danielewski himself, to tell the story that they are embroiled in. This labyrinth is both a physical place and a place of consciousness; each character that faces their own demons travels through this vast, empty maze. Critic Will Slocombe argues the labyrinthine structure shows that Danielewski is truly channeling the Derrida-esque ideal that nothingness lies at the base of the work, and that nihilism is the ultimate conclusion that the work arrives at. Although the novel follows in the postmodern tradition of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, House of Leaves does not give its characters up to be obliterated in the meaninglessness of the text. Critics Natalie Hamilton and Katharine Cox both argue that the novel follows the narrators’ journeys into the labyrinth of the story that are, in the end, productive and not deconstructive. Although great pain is suffered and lives are lost in the process, the narrators are ultimately brought through the darkness of the labyrinth. My paper will first present and respond to the critical attitudes typified by these three critics. I will then examine how House of Leaves achieves its thematic effect concerning storytelling both via and despite his work’s thoroughly postmodern, unorthodox structure. Finally, this paper will examine the issue of the narrators’ identities and how they are informed by their storytelling. I will argue that it is by their capacity to relate their struggle to outside observers that they are redeemed through their trials.

The information that I discovered while researching To Kill a Mockingbird has led to the complex question of how Harper Lee’s own life is not only reflected within the novel, but also how the experiences of her life led her to be able to produce a novel that focused so strongly on the controversy of ethics and law within the story’s plot and character development. The connection can be made through the character of Atticus Finch, the main character of the story. Atticus Finch, as many of us who have had the pleasure of reading this book know, is a well-known lawyer of his small southern hometown who would rather pay more attention to the ethics and morality of life rather than focus on the logistics of the law. He defends a black man charged with the rape of a white woman, knowing the case is hopeless, because it is what is right. Harper Lee’s father was much the same in that he always favored ethics and morality over the law despite his profession, and always treated his children as if they were adults.

Because of the elements of this research proposal, an authorial experience and social approach best suits this topic. On the one hand, Harper Lee’s personal life and her personal experiences are the basis of each one of her characters and the setting of the story. Through Atticus Finch, there is a connection to the law profession and the ethical versus non-ethical actions of lawyers. The setting of the story is also a significant aspect of the novel because of the mindset of the characters that live there. These three elements combined provide for a combination of looking at not only To Kill a Mockingbird, but also at looking at the larger research question of how law and life come together within this story.

Personally I, throughout my life, have changed my own opinion of the novel and title character as time has progressed.  As an adolescent, Fitzgerald’s undiscerning reader, I found myself adoring Daisy, the great lengths with which Gatsby pursues her, and the Jazz Age to be terribly romantic and tragic.  Years later, armed with life and scholarly experience, I found myself finding the plausibility of The Great Gatsby and its characters to be less likely and became enamored with the aesthetics of the novel, much like critic Kimberly Hearne.  As I complete my final year of undergraduate study (and tenth year of reading the novel) I find myself questioning my judgment of The Great Gatsby yet again:  Are the motives behind Gatsby’s American dream pure?  Practical?  What is Fitzgerald saying about America through his novel?  I then questioned how I arrived at these conclusions:  Had my progression hardened me to the point that I am now skeptical of the American dream?  Has my stance of Gatsby changed?  Simultaneously I speculated that literary criticism as a whole, as it developed and changed throughout time from 1925 to 1935, 1965, etc., might have also changed its predominant opinion of The Great Gatsby.

Despite my speculation—which I later found to be incorrect—in my paper, and through the utilization of sixty years of criticism, I will set out to prove that it is not the decade that has determined reception of The Great Gatsby in relation to the American dream concept, but instead the critical approach used.  To demonstrate this I will exhibit patterns in particular methods of criticism used, applying time-related synthesis when appropriate, and demonstrate whether or not overall reception was the same for each school of thought.  For example, the historical approaches of Michael Green and Jeffrey Louis Decker, written six years apart in the 1980s and 1990s, both reject the destructive concept of the American dream that validated Manifest Destiny and Nordicism.  A more intricate comparison arises between reader response critics John Fraser—who is entirely unconvinced by Fitzgerald’s approach to the American dream or the credibility of his characters as heroes—and, thirty-two years later, Jeffrey Rubin-Dorsky—who in the 1990s finds Gatsby to be a totally credible character.  Both critics use the same approach but arise at very different conclusions about Gatsby and the American dream.  Other interpretations that I will present are Marius Bewley’s 1954 psychoanalytic approach aimed at Gatsby’s illusions, Gerhard Joseph’s 1965 poststructuralist approach to the egg imagery in the novel and its relation to the American dream, Roger L. Pearson’s 1970 religious interpretation of Gatsby as a failed prophet of the American dream, and Kimberly Hearne’s 2010 stylistic interpretation of the American dream in The Great Gatsby.  My contribution to this critical discussion will be this synthesis of criticism and my argument that it is the concept of the American dream—a notion that Fitzgerald did not create and even exposed for all of its flaws—that so many critics abhor, not Jay Gatsby.

My arrival at this topic for my paper is far different from my departure.  The original goal was to dissect the many faces of Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s novel.  However, after reading over my sources from my original bibliography, I realized that it would be far easier to examine layers of a central theme in the book.  Isolation is prevalent in the novel, from geographic isolation on a ship in the middle of the Arctic Ocean to the emotional isolation Victor puts himself in from Elizabeth.  I want to examine Shelley’s use of the theme to develop her plot.

I believe Mary Shelley uses isolation to emphasize consequences of knowledge and advancing technology.   At the time the novel was published, there was a great interest in electric power and the possibility of bringing dead tissue back to life.  Mary Shelley’s inspiration for this story came from this phenomenon and possibly from her miscarriage.  In her novel, Victor is told by his father that Knowledge is power.  It is later shown in the story what the consequences of his knowledge are and what it leads him to.  He, along with his Creature both die alone after overreaching for their goals.  Victor wants to play God and finds that he is not prepared to be responsible for his experiment.  Similarly, the Creature wants a mate and will stop at nothing until he gets one.  His greed pushes the only person on the planet away from him and after asking Victor’s forgiveness, the Creature accepts his fate and learns to be lonely.

For my paper, I would like to examine the aspects of isolation and loneliness Shelley uses in her book, beginning with the location at which the story begins: in the middle of the
ocean on a whaling ship.  This will progress to the physical isolation Victor places on himself when experimenting with his Creature.  It is important to note that for the most part, the novel is an epistolary.  Much of the beginning plot is in the form of letters
from Victor to his family and Elizabeth.  The correspondence is not only evident of the time, but it also makes the point that Victor has physically distanced himself.  This will move to the emotional isolation from Elizabeth and Henry.  His isolation and rejection of his Creature will lead into the Creature’s isolation in the woods and acceptance of the fact he will live the rest of his life feared by society and without a mate.  The paper will end
where it began, focusing on the circular motion of the plot and how the ending of the story is Victor and his Creature’s encounter in the Arctic.  I feel Shelley does this to not only conclude the flash-back sequence as Victor tells his story, but also to draw the reader’s attention to his present state.  He tells his story to strangers and is without family and his fiancée.

The novel American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis from 1991 is a first-person narrative set in elite Manhattan society at the end of the 1980s. The narrator, Patrick Bateman, is a young Wall St. investment banker, already at the upper echelon of the privileged gentry, born rich and getting richer. He is obsessed with status: compulsively listing his belongings, exhaustively explaining his process of using the items and often listing their prices while commenting on the features and belongings of others as relating to their particular status. He has all the outward signs and material possessions of any one of his peers and would also be indistinguishable from any of them in most respects if not for his predilection for savage violence and gruesome murder, often after engaging in utterly horrific sex acts. His bloodlust is mostly sated upon prostitutes and women (which is why this novel caused fury among Feminist advocates and critics), yet in many cases he uses murder to eliminate those he perceives as socially or materially superior to him. In some instances his murders are spree-killings, motivated simply by his opportunistic cruelty.

The narration of Bateman over the course of the novel changes greatly. In the book’s first scene he describes a night on the town with his Wall St. cohorts, engaging in the quintessential 80’s activities: drinks, cocaine and women. He speaks of their activities and conversation in rational, even at times quite humorous tones. However, by the end of the book, Bateman has broken down completely, claiming to have been followed for six blocks by a park bench which also spoke to him, as well as having been told by an ATM to ‘Feed me a stray cat’ and ‘Cause a terrible scene at Sotheby’s’ (396). This radical degradation of Batemans perception of reality is a major aspect of the story. Another example of Bateman’s instability is highlighted by a repeated narrative pattern in which Bateman describes his most vicious and sexually perverse acts of violence, then follows with a chapter detailing the career of various popular musical acts of the 1980’s, specifically Whitney Houston, Genesis and Huey Lewis & the News. The significance of this disconnective shift possibly denotes an underlying definition for Batemans’ psychosis in terms of how his violence could be interpreted as an un-avoidable by-product of the fractured, yet insular world which Bateman inhabits.

In my paper, I will attempt to quantify Patrick Bateman’s role in the world he describes. I will use close reading of the text to examine the ways in which he interacts with other characters, and compare that with his ‘behavior’ as narrator. Additionally, I will pay close attention to how other characters interact with one another. In many scenes they mistake names and faces, a testament to the loose social structure and the ubiquitous need to have the same haircut and wear the same suit. I will link that confusion to Bateman’s disconnection from the story he narrates and will use textual evidence to prove this social confusion as a likely answer to why he is never apprehended for his crimes. Also, I will examine the possibility that he (as he describes himself) does not exist within the framework of his world, that he (as a character and narrator) is lying about his exploits, or perhaps his character is not connected to the world he describes, and is merely the construct of an outsider observing the socialite yuppies of Manhattan and his description of his violence is delusional imagination. I plan on using theories put forth by C. Namwali Serpell concerning Ellis’ use of repetition in the trope of the narrative, specifically in Bateman’s repeated description of the daytime talk show which he watches daily and his compulsive and ever-present need to return videotapes. I hope to bring into conversation the seminal essay by Elizabeth Young: The Beast in the Jungle, the Figure in the Carpet from 1992, in which she describes American Psycho in terms of postmodernism and delves heavily into the nature of Patrick Bateman both as a character and a narrator of this story.

My paper will focus on one of the central themes of the novel—the manipulation of reality. I will show that the Party alters reality in order to complete its aims. The Party manipulates reality primarily through their language, Newspeak, and through the concept of doublethink. Newspeak is a language designed to reduce the amount of words in the human vocabulary and thereby indirectly reduce the number of thoughts that people are capable of thinking. By eliminating words and thoughts, their brains weaken, and therefore their ability to counter the Party weakens as well. Doublethink is a means of accommodating apparent contradictions in truth that allows the Party to sculpt whatever conception of truth that it wants the people to believe. The Party also manipulates the pages of history, which resonated with Orwell’s contemporary readers who recognized that his descriptions of Oceania resembled London.

I will also cover how the manipulation of truth allows for the suppression of undesirable behaviors. The Party mandates that sex can only occur between married spouses for the sole purpose of reproduction (i.e. creating new Party members to brainwash). Therefore, sexual pleasure and intimacy is deemed as illegal behavior, and people take out their sexual urges through mandatory pornographic films. The Party also reinvents gender roles and family, abolishing traditional family values that redirect loyalty from family to the State. It is common in the world of 1984 for children to turn in their parents for rebellious behavior, as Winston Smith did to his mother. But people are not only supervised by their families, but by everybody. Telescreens monitor behavior; the Thought Police monitor peoples’ thoughts; posters of a predominating figure with the tag Big Brother is Watching You haunts people wherever they turn. I will show that in the world, there is no escape.

My paper will also discuss the anomaly of Winston Smith, one of few dissenters in this dystopian nightmare. Winston Smith struggles against his indoctrination to find his own interpretations of the truth and to identify how the Party has altered the truth as a means of eliminating rebellious instincts. I will explain how Winston rebels through sexual intercourse, by reading forbidden literature (Goldstein’s The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism), and how he is eventually defeated through brainwashing and torture. Through my analysis of Winston I will explain how the Party has constructed an impenetrable system of control that prevents rebellion from taking root.

While more commonly seen in the entertainment industry, the idea of being “type casted” as an author remains a constant concern in the literary community. Though an author may routinely focus on a certain topic or exhibit a particular style, no author wants to be pigeonholed into a specific stereotype that will serve as shackles for the rest of their career. One author, who has been a victim of this “type casting” perhaps by his own doing, is Ernest Hemingway. Viewed by many scholars as the quintessential “macho writer”, Hemingway’s male dominated stories in both plot and characters, along with his direct syntax, has resulted in a somewhat tainted reputation, especially in the feminist community. My paper will be centered around The Sun Also Rises, one of his more famous works, more specifically the relationships amongst the characters, as well as focusing on the depth and personality of each.

The inspiration for this topic arose during my general research of the scholarly conversations in regards to Hemingway, and more explicitly his novel The Sun Also Rises. There were countless essays aimed at exposing the inner chauvinist in Hemingway, and a somewhat lacking representation of the counter argument. By digging a little deeper I was able to find several compelling pieces that supported the counter argument, shedding light on several points that had before gone unnoticed in my research. Citing papers by several scholars, most notably Thomas Strychacz and Margaret D. Bauer, as well as other works by Hemingway, I will support my claim that Hemingway is not only far from a chauvinist, but actually possesses a superior understanding of the male/female relationship in comparison to many other acclaimed authors. The outwardly masculine and seemingly brave characters at the center of many of his works, such as Romero and Bill in The Sun, masks an inner vulnerability and sensitivity more commonly associated with female characters. Another characteristic of Hemingway’s writing that may have contributed to his pigeonholing is his brief and simple syntax. The reader is responsible for looking deep inside these unassuming sentences to find the passion of the characters, and because the female roles are generally smaller in his pieces, it is mistakenly assumed that they have no passion.

My argument will show that strong, independent women can be found throughout his writing, from Lady Brett Ashley to the pregnant woman from Indian Camp, and it is through these characters that we see the insecurities and follies of their male counterparts. While bullfighting, big-game hunting, drinking and travel may be the central themes to many Hemingway pieces, this cannot be used as support for the “Hemingway’s a chauvinist” argument. Rather, this only serves as evidence that Hemingway wrote about what he knew and loved, and didn’t try to fool you otherwise. A somewhat “new critics” like approach is needed when tackling a piece of Hemingway’s work, for so much has been made of his masculine reputation that it is difficult to approach his work without any preconceived opinions. I will negate these preconceived notions by removing the “macho writer” veil that has been cast over Hemingway, revealing levels of depth and feeling that had previously gone unnoticed.