11 HL: Dalloway and Eliot links

a copy of the modernism handout

online text of Mrs. Dalloway

Annotated text of 'Prufrock' and 'The Wasteland'

An article about 'Prufrock' from Poetry X

A Cummings study guide for 'Prufrock'

A radio programme called 'The Wasteland and Modernity'

8: A scene from Midsummer

11: world literature assignment template

Download the template for your World Literature Assignment (.doc).

11: sample analytical paragraph

We looked at this in class. This is half of a body paragraph from an student's essay about moral inversion in Mother Courage:

War heroes emerge throughout the play, each of them revealing the theme of moral inversion of war. War heroism is encountered already in scene one, where recruiting soldiers emphasize the “good money in it, glory too.” (p.7) The promise of glory persuades Eilif to abandon his family for the military, showing how alluring the idealism of being a war hero is. Eilif soon gains the recognition he was promised: “Hacked ‘em to pieces, did you, so my gallant lads can get a proper bite to eat? What do the Scriptures say? ‘Whatsoever thou doest for the least of my brethren, thou doest for me.’” (p.17) The moral inversion of Eilif’s ‘heroic’ act is clear: Eilif is being praised for a sinful act due to the benefit it gave his country. The strong connotation of ‘hacking’ accentuates the brutality of the act, emphasizing the irony of Eilif’s heroism. The reference to Christianity also ludicrously embellishes the inversion, since the general is twisting the moral in the recited scripture to fit Eilif’s ironic heroism.

8: writing a thesis for Midsummer essays

The assignment is here.

sample intro 1:

If two people are in love and one thinks love is a crazy adventure and the other thinks love is a way to find contentment in life, the relationship probably won’t work out. The perception a person has with love can determine the way love works for them. According to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, love can be fulfilling or frustrating depending upon the way the person perceives it.

sample intro 2:

Bette Midler, an American singer, once said, ‘Some say love, it is a river.’ What Midler is showing is that there are different ways of seeing love, and those different perspectives might affect the way love works in a person’s life. According to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, love can be fulfilling or frustrating depending upon the way the person perceives it.

sample conclusion:

In the play, how a person sees love determines how he or she experiences it. In today’s world, some people see love as a wild exciting ride, and as a result their love life is more likely to be chaotic; likewise, a person who sees love as a way of finding peace and contentment will have romantic experiences that give them that opportunity. Love usually turns out the way a person looks at it.

10: P&P essay

Choose one of the prompts below. Write a 4-5 paragraph essay (600-1000 words) on that topic.

1. How does the author use foils in the novel? Use two or three examples in your analysis.


2. Discuss why and how a novelist would use caricatures, using some examples from this novel.


3. Discuss the use of the letter as a plot device and its unique function in a novel, as applied to Pride and Prejudice.


4. How does the author hold the readers’ interest in the novel? Focus on one technique or a few related techniques.


5. Discuss the point of view, or narrative voice, of the novel, and how the author uses it to affect the way we read the novel.

Draft due: Friday 7 May

Essay Moodled in: Monday 10 May

Name your file last name + pride. Mine would be called kilmerpride.docx.

Here's the sample we wrote together in class on Wednesday:

Why are details of setting important in the novel?

setting as reflection of character

Authors often provide information about settings for their novels, and those descriptions add to the mood of the novel and a sense of realism. However, one reason to provide setting details is to provide a sense of characterization for those associated with that setting. Because of the limited third person point of view and the thematic significance of perspective in Pride and Prejudice, the narration does not allow the reader to perceive characters in an objective manner, and that objective view is important to the foreshadowing and the readers' expectations. Therefore, Austen uses the details of specific settings to give information about characters that bypass Elizabeth's perspective of those characters or suggests an outcome of which Elizabeth herself is not aware.

topic sentence:

One example of this is Pemberly.

Because Elizabeth's perspective is so significant to the novel, if Austen wants to develop characterization that disagrees with that perspective, she can use details from a setting associated with the character to do so.

If you remember, we started with a fairly simple idea and found more and more complexity as we explored the possiblke examples. Notice the bad topic sentence and the better topic sentence.

8: Midsummer act III paragraph

Due Thursday 6 May. Moodle it in.

Here's a sample we wrote together today: