English 331
C. Knight
Paper 3 (due May 14).
Don Juan
1. In class I suggested, without really following it up, that Byron's stanza form for Don Juan constituted a sort of plot of its own. Discuss Byron's stanza, the problems he has with it, the various functions it serves, and its relations to his major concerns.
2. Byron seems a persistent and interminable doubter, yet, at the same time, he seems to insist on the importance of facts--consistently mocking the delusions brought about by subjective ideas. Are these two positions consistent with one another, and if so, how? (You can also deal with this question by quarreling with its assumptions--that Byron is a doubter or that he insists on the priority of facts.)
3. Byron's narrator is a subject of virtually endless puzzling and comment, and his personality seems to lie behind the previous questions. Is he consistent? Do we like him? Is he Byron or some fictional figure? In what senses is he the real hero of his poem?
4. Canto I centers on sex--primarily the relationship between Juan and Julia, but also those of Don José and the supposed Inez-Alfonso affair. What are the varieties of meanings that sexuality has in this Canto? Does Byron make or imply a general judgment about sexual morality?
5. Canto I is a story told by an old man (at least thirty) about an adolescent who is in love with a young woman with an old husband. Discuss Canto I as a poem about age and aging.
6. Byron's treatment of war in Cantos VII and VIII allows him to satirize politics and to explore alternative versions of heroism. What does Byron imply about the three topics (war, politics, and heroism), and how does the topic of war connect the other two?
Decline and Fall
1. Shortly after writing Decline and Fall, Waugh became a Roman Catholic. Is there any sense in which the novel can be said to be religious? (It certainly seems to make hash of the Church of England, modern clergymen, and the St. Ann's Chorale.)
2. Nothing in Decline and Fall seems to fit. At every point where things can go wrong, they do. Why? What is the source of the incongruities of the novel? Do the novel's absurdities have specific sources, or is one of its major absurdities the absurdity of the absurdities themselves?
3. Paul Pennyfeather seems to be a prime instance of the modernistic anti-hero. Describe his character. What is its thematic importance? In what ways is he anti-heroic? Can he be held in any sense responsible for the surprising events that happen to him?
4. Virtually everything in Decline and Fall seems to be fake. Does the novel provide any sense of what is real and valuable? If so, what is it? If not, how can it satirize society without any positive values by which readers can reach judgments?
5. A variety of characters in the novel--Grimes, Prendergast, Philbrick, Fagan--recur in surprisingly different contexts. Do these characters have a consistent significance that becomes important each time they reappear, or does their significance change with each reappearance? Discuss the function of recurrent characters.
6. The Circumferences are late to the "sports" because, as Lady Circumference puts it, "Circumference ran over a fool of a boy." Lord Tangent's apparently minor wound leads to his death. Prendergast's head is sawed off, and he "'ollered fit to kill for nearly 'alf an hour." What is the significance of cruelty in Decline and Fall?
The Crying of Lot 49
1. One critic wittily suggests that the secret bidder on Lot 49 is actually Jacques Derrida. Barring such imaginative possibilities, is there actually an ending to the novel? If so, what is it? If not, what is the significance of leaving it inconclusive? What is the relationship of the ending (or lack of it) to what has gone before?
2. Oedipa sees San Narciso as a printed circuit; important communication takes place at the Yoyodyne plant; Maxwell's demon, in Nefastis's machine, seeks to achieve perpetual energy by sorting molecules at different speeds; Oedipa finally sees the world as a giant computer. What is the importance of electronic imagery in the novel?
3. Tristero's empire seems decidedly right-wing, but the major users of W.A.S.T.E. seem to be to poor and dispossessed. Oedipa identifies herself, fairly early in the novel, as a Young Republican, but she eventually achieves a vision of America that might different from that of Gingrich, Lott, or Bush. What are the politics of Pynchon's novel?
4. The rock group at the "Echo Courts" is called "the Paranoids," and at least one, possibly two, of Oedipa's four possible solutions to the novel can be described as paranoid. Various characters certainly seem paranoid. Of course, the existence of a vast, shadowy network inspires paranoia. Paranoia seems to be the dementia of choice for Pynchon's novel. Why and in what ways?
5. Oedipa seems almost defined by the men who exploit, betray, or desert her from Pierce Inverarity to her husband. Why are personal relationships so unsatisfactory in this novel? What connections can you suggest between Oedipa's unsuccessful personal life and the major themes of the novel?
6. The image of San Narciso seems to grow until it becomes the image of America itself. In what senses is The Crying of Lot 49 a novel about America, and what does it imply about the character of the country?