Storytelling and power
Michelle_Michy
FinalEssayQuestionsSpring2020.pdf
LC100W: Final Essay
Choose one of the following questions. These essay questions are fairly general, so you should
find a particular angle or approach that interests you. Your essay must include a focussed thesis
statement, detailed supporting evidence, and a concluding statement. You must discuss two
course texts in your answer. Your essay should be formatted according to MLA style and must
include a works cited page.
1) Many of the texts that we have studied are in some ways concerned with coming of age.
With reference to two works, discuss how stories function as a vehicle for finding or
discovering the self. You might also consider examples of storytelling that question the
limits of the self and portray coming of age as a continual process with no fixed end
point.
2) We have repeatedly encountered characters that have problems communicating with
one another—inarticulate characters that cannot say what they really mean, isolated
characters who have no one to talk to, untrustworthy characters that lie, or confused
characters that are prone to misreading events and other people. With reference to two
works, consider how they question the power of words (and perhaps more broadly
stories themselves) as effective, trustworthy vehicles of communication.
3) Throughout this course, we have seen the connection between storytelling and power.
To take someone’s story away from them can be to exercise power over them. It is
powerful to be able to tell your story, your own way. Being able to manipulate and
move people with words is also a powerful skill. Discuss storytelling and power in at
least two works.
4) Many of the works that we have read depict characters who engage with clothes,
costume, and performance; other works write about bodies and embodied experience.
Consider how two works use these tropes to suggest something about the making and
performance of personal identity.
5) Ian McEwan states that “it is the nature of empathy to think oneself into the minds of
others.” Discuss, with reference to one work, how stories allow us, as readers, access to
the minds of others. What do we gain when we can think ourselves into the lives of
others (other cultures, other time periods, or simply other people)? And/or what might
some of the dangers be? In answering this question, you should think about the ethical
value of storytelling as a vehicle for empathy.
