Pacesetter21

So far in the course, we have investigated two different methods of searching for answers about the world around us--those used by natural scientists and social scientists. Now we turn to another method of understanding the world, the creative one. Specifically, we will investigate fictional works whose characters and themes relate to the disability you have chosen as a theme of all your essays. Specifically, you will read and analyze a novel, read and analyze a short story, read (or watch) and analyze a play, or watch and analyze a film in which one of the major characters suffers from the disability they have chosen as a course theme. For your literary analysis, you will analyze a fictional work.  Remember, for your literary analysis, you will analyze and discuss a fictional work. 

For your literary analysis, you will analyze ONE fictional work about your chosen disability, and you will find at least three outside nonfiction sources that help you analyze your one fictional work. One of the themes of our course is the idea that those in the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities are all engaged in the search for truth. The best way of approaching this paper is to ask yourself what you have learned uniquely from a fictional treatment of the impairment that you could not have learned in the other disciplines. That is, what kind of truth do we find in the humanities? Read about MLA style here:  https://faytechcc.libguides.com/c.php?g=731631&p=5513759  

Please watch the video below. 

So far this semester, we have explored two avenues by which people attempt to understand the world, the people, and the events around them. We have looked into the natural sciences as a means of using empirical investigation to understand and predict natural phenomena; we have also researched in the social sciences as a means of understanding society and the interactions among individuals. Having chosen a particular disability, you have viewed it through two different lenses and come to understand from two very different perspectives.

Now we turn to another way of knowing — the creative one. You may think that painting and music, poetry and fiction have quite the opposite goal of such disciplines as chemistry and psychology. However, if you look more broadly at the human endeavor to understand the world—to make sense of the senseless and to find order in chaos—then you might decide that we are all engaged in the same enterprise. Since the dawn of time, men have been telling each other stories to understand how the world was created and what causes volcanos and why children die in their sleep. In fact, mythologist Joseph Campbell tells us that humans have been telling over and over again the same story, what he calls the hero’s journey. And consider what D. H. Lawrence said: 

Being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog. The novel is the one bright book of life. Books are not life. They are only tremulations on the ether. But the novel as a tremulation can make the whole man alive tremble. Which is more than poetry, philosophy, science, or any other book-tremulation can do. (“Why the Novel Matters”)

And so we turn our eyes to the lens of fiction. You will do a close reading of a short story, novel, or play in which one of the characters suffers from your chosen disability. As you write a literary analysis of the fictional work, you will reveal what you have learned about the disability through the fictional perspective. Ask yourself some or all of these questions: What do I understand differently from the fictional treatment? Does the author provide a sympathetic or unsympathetic portrait of the disabled character? Does the disabled character seem to have a special knowledge not shared by the other characters? Is the story told from the first-viewpoint of the disabled character — or another character? Or is the story in the third person? How does fiction reveal something more real or more profound than we can learn from the natural sciences or the social sciences? What are the limitations of the fictional approach?

In your literary analysis, you will also use at least three scholarly articles from the FTCC databases to deepen your understanding of the story — or to provide another perspective from your own. As you learned when you did the literature review in the social sciences, scholarship advances as the individual scholars disagree about issues relating to their subject and investigate those differences. Those who study fiction are engaged in the same scholarly endeavor. You will first prepare an annotated bibliography of the three (or more) sources you have consulted, and then you will use them as sources in your own analysis. This paper is your analysis of a work of fiction. It is about a work of fiction and about your own evaluation of its depiction of a disability. Please use the outside sources only to assist you in your analysis. All citations will be done in MLA style, the one appropriate to the humanities.

For your literary analysis, you will analyze a fictional work. 

Remember, for your literary analysis, you will analyze and discuss a fictional work. 

For your literary analysis, you will analyze ONE fictional work about your chosen disability, and you will find at least three outside nonfiction sources that help you analyze your one fictional work.

Please read carefully the handouts below, which will explain in more detail both the literary analysis and the annotated bibliography:

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/literature-fiction/

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/annotated-bibliographies/

You may find it difficult to locate literary works about your chosen disability, especially with a simple Google search. Therefore, I have collected several below, from which you may choose. You may also select another work from the thousands available, but please get my permission if you choose something not on the list. 

Please note that the list below includes suggestions to give you ideas. If you don't see your chosen topic/disability listed below, please perform your own Internet research and find a fictional work that relates to your disability.

Stick with the disability you have written about all semester. Find a fictional work that relates to it.

E-mail me so I can approve your selection. 

Note: Before committing to your selection, you must locate the work of literature, browse through it to see if it contains enough material for a paper, and do preliminary research to make sure scholarly sources are available.

AUTISM/ASPERGER’S

· Mark Haddon, The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time (novel)*

· Cammie McGovern, Eye Contact (novel)

· Jodi Picoult, House Rules (novel)

· Richard Selzer, “Pipistrel” (short story)

BIPOLAR DISORDER/MENTAL ILLNESS

· Milos Forman, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (movie)*

· Ken Kesey, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest  (novel)*

· David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook (movie)*

BLINDNESS

· Raymond Carver, “Cathedral” (short story)*

· Elizabeth Kata, A Patch of Blue (novel)

· D. H. Lawrence, “The Blind Man” (short story)*

· H. G. Wells, “The Country of Blind People” (short story)

DEAFNESS

· Raymond Carver, “Careful” (short story)

· Charles Dickens, “Dr. Marigold” (short story)

· Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (novel)*

· Mark Medoff, Children of a Lesser God (play)

· Haruki Murakami, “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” (short story)

DEPRESSION

· Judith Guest, Ordinary People (novel)

· Doris Lessing, “To Room Nineteen” (short story)

· Flannery O’Connor, “The Lame Shall Enter First” (short story)

· Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (novel)*

· Sylvia Plath, “The Wishing Box” (short story)

· H. G. Wells, “Under the Knife” (short story)        

LUNG DISEASE/CANCER

· John Green, The Fault in Our Stars (novel)

· W. Somerset Maugham, “Sanatorium” (short story)*

· Alice Munro, “Floating Bridge” (short story)*

· Tillie Olsen, “Tell Me a Riddle” (short story)*

· Eugene O’Neill, A Long Day’s Journey into Night  (play)*

· Harvey Pekar, Our Cancer Year (graphic novel)

· Richard Yates, “No Pain Whatsoever” (short story)

POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION

· Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” (short story)*

· Clare Wigfall, “Safe” (short story)