The Monster Paper

A Hood Project: The Monster Paper Assignment

In this paper we will ask how history (of real peoples, events, objects, laws, places, etc.) can give help us understand what is at stake in the literary texts we read. Essentially in this paper you will identify a discrete and concrete (historically locatable) item in the text assigned to your group (i.e. black cats in The Bluest Eye or The Beatles in The Outsiders). You will then conduct outside research on that item. The information you learn about that object should change (even if only slightly) the way you read the novel.  Imagine if you learned that people in the Midwest used to hang black cats during the depression era Christmas seasons how that might change your perception of Pecola’s relationship to the cat in the novel.)  Your paper then would posit a thesis arguing that knowing X information about this particular object in this particular time and place suggests Y about what’s at stake in this particular scene or detail of the novel.

The purpose of that research is to help us understand more fully the effect of the author’s decision to include this particular item.   You research may choose to contextualize that object within one or more of the following:  1) the time and place in which the story is set 2) the time and place in which the novel was first or most influentially received and 3) the time and place in which the author his/herself might have first experienced this object.

Your paper will not only contextualize the history of that object, but it will also posit how this extended knowledge affects the way we understand what’s at stake in the particular scene or line in which this object appears in the narrative.  Your thesis will essentially be a claim about how understanding this particular history about this particular object allows us to read this scene and the narrative in this particular way.

You will be responsible not only for positing a clear thesis and relaying the well cited historical information, but also for doing the work of analyzing how this object changes/adds to/deepens/challenges/etc. the way we read this part of the novel.   You will provide relevant and well cited and clearly introduced quotes.  You will accompany those quotes with detailed and thoughtful discussion of what part of that quote is important to your argument.  Essentially this paper assignment has two parts:  Historical Research and Close Reading Analysis.  Though the ordering and integration of these parts in your actual paper depends on what makes most logical sense for your paper and argument, these will be two of the primary factors I assess in the grading.

Largely, the first part of the paper (“Historical Research”) will be complete by the time you turn in your history paper.   You might after your presentation feel that you want to do a bit more historical work, but if you did the assignment well, you should focus on asking yourself how does the research I’ve done affect the way I read some aspect of this text.   (Doing more research is especially hard given that there is only a week after the presentation to do the paper.)

Formatting: This paper should be 5 -7 pages, double spaced, 1-inch margins and 12 point Times New Roman font with page numbers and your whole name listed in the footer. Again there is no set rule, but I imagine that you would spend roughly 2-3 pages on the history and 3-5 pages laying out a close reading analysis  in which that historical information helps enhance how we read a specific part of the novel and consequently the novel as a whole.

 

Grading Rubrics:

Incorporating History

Do you present a clear and focused history? Do you have at least three sources? Do you clearly cite your sources? Do you use reputable sources? Is at least one of your sources a scholarly source? Do you tell/present the history in a way that clearly foregrounds the aspect of the history that you believe will affect the way we read the part of the novel you will ultimately highlight?  Ultimately have you done the work of translating the history as you presented for the History Presentation assignment to your paper.  This means that the history shows up within the context of a close reading analysis thesis and is part of how you are illustrating your overall argument.

Engaging Text

Did you relate your history to a specific part of the novel?   Do you posit an explanation of how that history deepens, changes, or challenges our understanding of how to read this part of the text (and consequently the novel as a whole)? In relaying your explanation do you specific textual evidence?

Argumentation

Are your introduction and conclusion focused and doing more than warming up and cooling down. Do your examples and explanations work as coherent and logically sound ways to illustrate your argument?  Do you introduce your various points?  Is the order of your paper clear and conducive to illustrating your point?

Grammar & Style

Do you use clear, complete, and active sentences? Do you adhere to rules of capitalization and correct punctuation? Do you spell words correctly? Are your citations clear and accurate?

 

Paper Tips

Before you begin your research: 

  • You should start by identifying a scene and/or object in the text that most interests you. If you pick a scene first that’s fine, but know you will need to narrow it down to a specific object in that scene.   If you start with an object, that is also fine, but know that your object needs to be clearly defined and discrete, and you will need to ultimately  be able to focus your paper discussion to how that object shows up in one to three scenes.   So the plantation may not be a specific enough object to focus on in A Lesson Before Dying.
  • Before you begin your research on the object in the scene, it’s worth analyzing the scene on its own. What is the major objective of this scene?  How does it support or challenge the novel’s overall objectives?   What are the particular literary devices (i.e. dialogue, allusions, asides, extended metaphor, etc.) of this scene?  What is the language doing?  How is this object rendered? And what is its role?

 

In conducting your research:

  • You should remember that you are not writing a term paper on that object. Your main objective is to understand the text, how it was conceived, and how it might have been perceived more particularly.   To this end you should remember that you are not trying to write a history of that object from the dawn of ages.   Whatever history you find, you have to make a case for how either the author, the characters, or the reader would be aware of/a part of that historical understanding of the object.  So if you are thinking about black cats in The Blue Eye, a conversation on Black Cats in the ancient ruins of Rome might not be relevant unless you can show us that Morrison had some connection or fascination with these Roman cats or that there was some super famous news bulletin that made everyone in the post-depression Ohio aware of black cats in Rome.
  • You should also keep in mind that you (more than likely) might have to change your research object or approach as you go along. For example perhaps you start out thinking that you are going to talk about black cats in Morrison’s novel, but you can’t find much of anything but you do find some interesting news about the regulation of stray animals in general and the establishment of the ASPA in Lorain County, OH.  Then you might shift your analysis to thinking about how the black cat and the old dog for all of their downfall are not strays, but how Pecola does become something of a stray.
  • Make sure your research is relevant and fits one or more of the above three contextualizing criteria. If you don’t, you run the risk of making anachronistic connections that will not allow you to make a logically sound argument.
  • Because you will more than likely need to change your original research ideas (and subsequently your ideas of what might be going on in the text), you should leave yourself plenty of time to research this paper. This is not a paper you can pull off over night or even in one week.

In formulating your thesis and writing your paper:

  • Revisit your original notes about the scene and the object. With this new information do you see additional connections? Are some of the ideas you thought might be working suddenly challenged?  The chances are if you took the time to really think about how the language and narrative  choices in this scene work and how this object seems to work within the logic of the narrative, your research will either challenge or deepen your analyses.  Either result is great.  If it deepens your interpretive claim by adding a new dimension your argument might be that: When we contextualize X object within the time period of the novel,  we can see the way the scene’s commentary on Y is also connected to the  text’s more subtle thoughts about Z.  (e.g. If we consider the attention given to the novel Gone With the Wind during the 1961 Centennial anniversary of the Civil War, we can see in Ponyboy’s reading Gone With the Wind how S.E. Hinton’s novel engages the genre of historical romance but also how American romance emerges at the expense of elevate white heroes while rendering invisible the plight of black lives on which those heroes depend).   If your research challenges your analysis that can also be good.  Now your thesis can be something to the effect of:  While the narrative suggests that X is at stake in this Y object, when we consider the history around Y object in the author’s life and in the life of her readers, we can see that the novel is actually much more conflicted about X.  (e.g. While early on Ponyboy describes the Greasers as intensely communal and family oriented, his decision to define their Greasers to the love of Elvis as opposed to The Beatles (which he associates with their wealthy rivals), a historical look at the tension between Elvis and The Beatles in the 1960s contradicts the narrative’s emphasis on the Greasers’ brotherhood and asks us to think about the way loner and the American iconic hero complicate if not qualify the idea of sociality in Hinton’s depiction of the working class Oklahoma youths.)
  • Your engagement with the novel must be 1) specific. You should bring us not only to a specific scene and moment, but to specific passages. 2) You should tell us exactly what to focus on and 3) you should explain how the history changes, deepens, challenges, etc. the way we read the part of the novel to which you are calling our attention.
  • Make sure you actually do the close reading. It isn’t enough to give us the history and then posit that this history must mean x about this scene.   Don’t just give us quotes and say “This is similar to the history.”   Tell me what exactly in the quote you want us to focus on.  Explain how it is similar to the part of the history you have discussed.  And then posit your own interpretive claim as to why that similarity matters.
  • You might not use all of the research that you find.  Indeed you probably won’t and shouldn’t use all your research in the paper.  Remember when you use write the paper, you are making an argument.  The history is only important in as much as it affects the way we read this moment, scene, or part of the novel as a whole.  Remember that before you turn in your paper, you will actually give a presentation of the history to the class.  While this paper also won’t include every aspect of your research, you can in this presentation highlight the history first and foremost.  In this paper you might actually end by suggesting how this history might affect the way we read the scene. This is to say the conclusion of that paper might be where you begin for this paper.