Write at least 5 to 6 sentences that examine a theme we have been discussing this semester. This will serve as the first step in brainstorming for your midterm paper.
I have extended the deadline to Friday March 10th at 5 pm.
Post here as a comment
Write at least 5 to 6 sentences that examine a theme we have been discussing this semester. This will serve as the first step in brainstorming for your midterm paper.
I have extended the deadline to Friday March 10th at 5 pm.
Post here as a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
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March 7, 2017 at 12:20 pm
I am planning to focus my midterm paper on writing about binaries. I want to break the binaries of masculine and feminine, weak and strong, and ignorance and consciousness. For the masculine and feminine binary, I plan to talk about the Life of a Sensuous Woman and how gender plays a role in the Japanese culture and society that affects the reputation of each individual. For the weak and strong binary, I plan to talk about Bewitched, by Akinari and describe what the characters Manago and Toyo-o symbolizes. Finally, to discuss the binary of ignorance and consciousness, I plan on analyzing the roles of Dorine and Orgon, in the play Tartuffe.
March 7, 2017 at 1:17 pm
Themes:
Change versus Tradition
Dangers of ignorance
Oppression of Women
Temptation and Destruction
For the midterm, I have come up with several themes that I have noticed throughout our readings. The first theme I’m planning to explore is temptation among different characters in the readings. The temptation is prevalent in Moliere’s Tartuffe as well as in Bewitched. My second idea would be to explore the impact of love and it results in a downfall for the main protagonist. This can be seen in The Suffering of Young Werther and Bewitched. Another theme that I had in mind was change verses tradition and use Bartleby, the Scrivener as a foundation for the argument. The story highlights the inefficiency of the corporate structure and could be used to compare to, The Circle which illustrates the shift into a new work dynamic that companies such as Google are weaving into their work space. Currently, the most relevant would change verses tradition as I’m about to enter that dynamic. The biggest challenge will be to ignore my assumptions and instead use the text as a driving force for the argument.
March 7, 2017 at 3:02 pm
The topic I’m thinking about writing about is coming of age. I would like to write about how a character mindset change from when they were a child to an adult. I was thinking about using the text “Life of a Sensuous Women” by Jhare Saiaku, “Bewitched” by Ueda Akinari, or “Confessions” by Jean-Jacques Rousseau to show how these characters circumstances shaped the people they are. As time passes, the character’s mindset starts change as they face new obstacles in their life. I will show how all characters in these stories start to gain a new outlook in their life through these experiences.
March 7, 2017 at 6:45 pm
A theme that I would like to write about for my paper is breaking the binary between the strong vs. the weak with the masculinity and feminine binary to strengthen my argument. I plan to use “Tartuffe” and talk about how Dorine, although considered part of the weak, she was the initiator in trying to expose Tartuffe’s lies when none of the family members would. I also plan to use “Bewitched” to talk about Toyo-o’s feminine side where he was considered very weak in the beginning of the story but when met with a predicament, he became more masculine. Lastly, I plan to use “Bartleby, the Scrivener” to illustrate the idea of the lawyer being a leader at first but with the entrance of Bartleby, his power slowly shifted towards the weak side. This idea could also relate back to “Tartuffe” where Orgon was at first considered very powerful as he was the man of the house and no one would defy him. However, that all changed at the end when Tartuffe’s lies were exposed and Orgon is no longer considered the strong man he once was.
March 8, 2017 at 10:11 am
The topic that I will be focusing on is religion and hypocrisy. In today’s world religious hypocrisy still plays a big role in society where religious leaders are looked up on as respected individuals, teachers of principles and beliefs but don’t actually practice them. As I’ve read in Moliere’s, where he showed how quickly religion can be used to hurt a person and affect their perspective when it’s used in a way that it’s not meant to be used. I’ll be talking about the corruption and the meme in which he painted Tartuffe as a saint but then reveal his agenda. I’ll also be talking about how religion and hypocrisy is affecting people all over the world and how it’s also the driving point for many immoral activities thats taking place in modern society.
March 8, 2017 at 4:10 pm
For my midterm paper, I would like to explore the theme: times when instinct or nature should come before rationality. Despite the negative connotation, there are two texts that exemplify this theme, “A life of a sensuous woman” by Ihara Saikaku and “Confessions” by Rousseau. In Saikaku’s fiction, the protagonist’s choice to indulge in lust leads her down a path of happiness, as opposed to complacency. However, if she had picked the path of an obedient Japanese housewife, which is the more logical choice given the time period; she might have never found enlightenment. On the other hand, while Saikaku’s protagonist indulges in her nature, Rousseau is forced to suppress it in order to maintain his public image. He emphasizes how his inability to find an outlet for his masochistic tendency impedes his social life and even his sex life.
March 8, 2017 at 10:09 pm
For my midterm paper, I am thinking about comparing Werther to Gatsby. I see a lot of similarities between both Gatsby’s character and Werther, along with their quest for love. Both stories have common themes such as failure of love at the end of their love stories because of both ending in death.
If that topic does not work out, I want to talk about the oppression of women in society, using Life of a Sensuous Women as the main example. I want to explore how religion and society during older time periods lead women to be oppressed because they have no other way to fit their own role in society. I can also used Moliere’s Tartuffe because Dorine’s character stands up and speaks out, which I think is important and I can incorporate it in my essay as a main example as well.
March 9, 2017 at 11:39 am
For the midterm, I would like to focus on the recurring theme that we have been seeing which is emotions vs. enlightenment. We saw this in Tartuffe and The Suffering of a Young Werther. These two texts are going to be the ones that I focus on and deeply analyze. This constant battle when determining what the right thing to do is interesting and it is displayed often. The shift from the enlightenment era to the romantic era is clearly displayed in both of these texts. I am going to look at these texts and see how they portray the characters and how reason and emotions play into their actions.
March 9, 2017 at 3:47 pm
For my midterm paper, I am planning on writing a binary between “weak vs Strong Personalities”; Taking two reading that we had discussed in class “Suffering of Young Wether” and “Confessions”.
First of all, I will introduce a thesis on each one of them, making a correlation on similar aspects of both readings. I will break down my points as experience, ideas, values and environment (nature) on a subjectivity of each character. Also, I would like to introduce my personal perspective in defining both reading as stories that might fit into the Enlightenment or Romanticism. And at the end, I will wrap it up with the changes made to their personalities by the different scenarios (experiences) of both plots.
March 10, 2017 at 9:21 am
Themes
1)Binary: weak and strong
2)Comparing old writers to modern writers
3)Women’s role in two of the books
4)The impact religion has on writes and themes for them to write about.
For my midterm I’m thinking on writing about one of this themes but I still havent decided which one I’m going to use. For binary I want to use some of the readings to show how the strong always takes advantage of the weak ones. For the differences in the time I want to compare the old readings we have to the most recent one we have read, or I could also find a reading from now and compare them. For women’s role basically the name describes my objective. And at last but not least the impact of religion, in this one want to addres the ways religion shape stories and give them suspence and supernatural characteristic. And thats basically it for now.
March 10, 2017 at 10:43 am
in those articles we have learned before, a lot of them talk about the relation between passion and rationality, especially during 16th to 18th century. Why dose that happen during that time? Why does those authors favor that topic during time? Also, does those topics just limit in the field within passion and rationality? Will them have different underlying meaning behind the passion and rationality, which means those subjects are just symbolizations of something? In my midterm paper, I would like to talk about the rationality and passion in those article we read, and how it changes during different context. In addition, I want to discuss that those conflicts happen in the articles have a positive or negative influence to the readers or people at that time.
March 10, 2017 at 11:59 am
I want to focus on the passion and reason based on the comparison and similarities between From Life of a Sensuous Woman and the Suffering of the Young Werther. They are both telling stories from first narrative perspective and they are both fiction. Readers can get a sense of feeling from the narrators’ “eyes” and “mouth”, to see how the hero and the heroine convey their ideas/opinions to their worlds and how they receive and interpret messages from their worlds. The heroine and Werther are both kind of out of control. The heroine cannot control her sexual desire, her life and her fate. She fails to resist the strong desire and it is her own desire and other men’s desire drive her to a worse life. She chooses to confess herself to the religion to pursue the peace. And Werther fails to control his feeling, love and passion and he ends up to kill himself and return to Nature to pursue the peace. The hero and heroine of literature works from different genres and different cultures have similar feelings, passions, and ending, which make me interested in.
March 10, 2017 at 12:25 pm
For the midterm essay, I want to write about the connection (experience to unexperienced; strong to weak). In “A life of a sensuous woman”, how the woman’s painful and dramatic experience made her a strong individual. Then to compare to “Bewitched”, Toyo-o, who was a youngest child in the family who is inexperienced, which makes him an easy target of the devil, how he was so vulnerable and weak throughout the story. Also, in “The suffering of young Wrether”, Wrether, who is a young artist who perhaps, a little too innocence in my perspective. Which he fell into the love triangle and the relationship became toxic(which i also think his weak minded personality led to his suicide)
March 10, 2017 at 1:12 pm
For my midterm paper I plan on writing about manipulation. Specifically, I would like to focus how different genders use different assets to achieve their goal. I am interested in the idea that these methods of manipulation may either appear necessary, or a choice depending on the culture or time. The texts I plan on using are Tartuffe by Moliere and East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I want to compare and contrast Elmire and Tartuffe from Tartuffe with Cathy from East of Eden. While their character traits are different, both novels feature deceit, trickery, and several tactics that are either perceived as malicious or clever. I will focus in on what defines a clever trick rather than a cruel one, as it appears in the novels.
March 10, 2017 at 3:14 pm
For my midterm paper I want to write about a comparison between two literary works on one of the following themes: effect of capitalism on individual development and behavior, effects of social hierarchy and class division on individuals and their relationship to society, how isolation and solitary lifestyle compares to an unified and attached lifestyle. I want to select two characters from two literary works whose backgrounds and characters trait are almost the exact opposite. Then I would compare them against each other on one of the themes to illustrate the impact their backgrounds have on their portrays of the theme.
March 10, 2017 at 3:36 pm
For my midterm paper I was thinking about comparing religions and how religions play a certain role in certain plays. I’d like to take two different stories, 1 we read and a separate one or just 2 that we read. I’d like to compare how different religions affect certain people’s lives, decisions, and well-being. Also with the two religions I think it would be cool to see how the writers took different stances on situations due to their religion.
March 10, 2017 at 4:34 pm
for my midterm paper I will be discussing the binary of faith, religion and self interest vs acting with rationality and logic. we see this binary play crucial roles in both Tartuffe and bartleby the scrivener. in both of these stories or plays if either religion, faith, or the lack of rationality was not there the story itself would not exist. this binary has many examples of being present in both of these literary works and is an undying cause of the major conflicts that arise in both.
March 10, 2017 at 5:06 pm
For my midterm paper, I would like to write about the binary of rationality versus passion which are the main ideas in Enlightenment and Romanticism respectively. For example, Dorine in Tartuffe exposed the hypocrisy of Tartuffe while Orgon, the character who represents stronger than other characters, believed in Tartuffe with his passion. However, the main character in The Suffering of Young Werther tried to use his rationality to keep his feeling away from Lotte, still fails to do so because of his passion. I might also talk about the binary of feminine versus masculine in my paper. I plan to do a comparison between Bewitched and Life of Sensuous Woman to support this binary.
March 10, 2017 at 5:15 pm
I might explore the idea of the self, as presented by the texts we’ve read so far and others. This idea is especially prominent since the emphasis on humanism, and develops over time with different authors. I find self-reflection interesting, as it is a difficult topic that requires a deep understanding of human nature. These authors develop characters who may be a kind of window to the self, and each does so in a different and subtle way.
March 10, 2017 at 5:24 pm
For my midterm paper, I am planning to write mainly about gender roles in some works that we read in class. I was very intrigued with Life of a Sensuous Woman And Tartuffe and I think gender role is a matter we never really got to discuss in class. The importance of gender role in these stories is so vital to the social issues that our country is going through today. I was thinking of comparing both stories and analyze them to my own personal interpretation that could turn out to be very interesting.
March 10, 2017 at 5:49 pm
For the midterm paper I would like to focus on intimate vs private in Goethe’s novel “Sufferings of young Werther. The obvious opposition of the vocabulary values of the intimate (as deeply personal, private, hidden) and public (as performed in the presence of the public, open) is filled with a new meaning when viewed through the prism of sentimental reflection of the main character of the novel. Although dairy type of the novel makes the reader perceive it as something intimate in fact, includes many other topics. Werther’s self-report allows us to highlight the intimate, while he led the dialog with himself (describing his feelings and sorrows) as well as public when he explored suburban life talking to locals.
March 10, 2017 at 5:57 pm
A few themes that I’ve taken great interest in:
1. Gender roles
2. The relationship between reason and the breakdown of traditionalism
3. The binary of strength vs weakness
So far I’m leaning towards hse 2nd theme. I’ve found it very fascinating that the period of Enlightenment seemed to allow writers to shine spotlights on their insecurities and vulnerability. As their way of thinking became more heightened, they became prone to looking within themselves. Vulnerability (especially among men) became much more common in stories and almost became a bizarre sign of strength (I believe this may be where admiration of honesty and vulnerability began rather than just looking down at it and seeing them as less manly or important that they were before.)
March 10, 2017 at 11:17 pm
In my paper, I would like to discuss the ‘ingredients for success’ — in other words, what makes the characters who we read about succeed in their motives? Such ‘ingredients’ would be defined as qualities and characteristics ascribed to the motives of the characters, like decisiveness, discipline, diligence, etc. Specific texts I would like to look at include Tartuffe, Bewitched, and Bartleby. When reading the texts, we all noticed that certain characters ended up controlling their own destinies to arrive at a point in life that they wanted — whether we personally thought they had succeeded in life or not, they did succeed in doing what they set out to do. In my paper, I would like to examine and evaluate the essential components needed for success – or rather completion – of motives. Also, if possible, I would like to discuss the opposite side of that issue — what factors led to the failure of completion of motives for some characters?