1000 Word Argumentative Research Paper (MLA Format)

Research Paper #2 Assignment

You have until April 23rd to produce an MLA format research paper of approximately 1,500

words (minimum 1,000 words), including also a Works Cited and an attached bibliography

showing research performed on Barry U. subscription databases. Submit both electronically

to Canvas and in hard copy. Sample basic bibliographies are available on my Canvas page for

this course. Students will write the paper based on a comparative analysis of two or more complementary film and literary texts, including at least one we have studied this semester. The essay must display an awareness of recent critical commentary on your texts and must include reference to at least two secondary sources retrieved via the Barry

University library subscription databases (such as the MLA bibliography, ProQuest, EBSCO

Academic Search Premier, etc.). Printouts of search results must be included with the paper

submission. (This paper represents 20% of your course grade.)

Your paper should advance an original argument about one of the following five topics:

1 The Mask: In his article “Clowns on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” Andrew

Stott explains that the clown Grimaldi “extended the idea of face-paint to a white foundation

that . . . implied a much stricter division between character and performer than had been

presented before” (8-9), and that, later, Grimaldi “made a spectacle of his own unmasked

decrepitude” (12). Use at least two examples including one we have studied to explore the

extent to which the use of some form of mask is typical of villain figures.

2 The Devouring Mother: In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell suggests that “the hero, whether god or goddess, man or woman . . . discovers and assimilates

his opposite (his own unsuspected self) either by swallowing it or being swallowed” (89).

Show how at least two complementary fictional figures (including one we have studied)

represent the villain as either an eater or one “swallowed up.”

3 The Trickster: William Hynes and William Doty note in their introduction

to Mythical Trickster Figures (1993) that the idea of a trickster archetype is controversial: some believe it is universal, while others see it as culture-specific. Investigate some

definitions of the archetype (see also below) and, using particular examples, argue for or

against its culture-specificity in American popular culture.

4 The Doppelgänger: The denouement of Alan Moore’s Batman: The Killing Joke (1988) finds the hero and the villain, who have spent the novel in pursuit of each other, sharing a

joke, implying an identification of one with the other. There are also doppelgängers

in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Fight Club: How does the notion of the doppelgänger complicate the relationship of the hero archetype

to that of the villain?

5 The Villein’s territory is the border between the chaos of organic nature and the

machineries of order. Show how at least two complementary fictional figures (including one

we have studied) represent the villain either as a destroyer of nature or as the revenge of

nature on the civilized.

Research Paper #2 Notes on Question Choices

1 The fool and the revenger are Elizabethan (she reigned 1558-1603, or the second half

of the sixteenth century) and Jacobean (King James I reigned c. 1603-1625, or first part of

seventeenth century) types. Shakespearean drama is notable for its fools, whereas Jacobean

drama includes a lot of bloody revengers. Dery (see bibliog. below) notes on p75 of his

chapter that during the medieval period “the characters of the Fool and Death were often

interchangeable.” His chapter overall considers the various significances of the mask. We

have an obviously masked death-jester in Gawain’s Bercilak. Satan wears a serpent-disguise in Paradise Lost, while seeking revenge on God. Recent popular “psycho-killer clowns” include Batman’s Joker [once played by American culture’s über-madman Jack Nicholson]

and even more recently V for Vendetta’s V, whose smiling mask conceals a possibly psychopathic terrorist partly based on Erik, the masked Phantom of the Opera.

In the silent film of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)[1] the plot is expanded by the addition of a lot of elements from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Therefore, “the lurer of the innocent soul into the realms of trial” (Campbell 60) is played by “Sir George Carew,” a

Henry Wotton figure. [DrP notes: “Miss Gina, an Italian singer,” plays half of Wilde’s Sybil

Vane part in this film; her opposite is Millicent, an ingenue. Likewise, Fight Club adds Marla Singer to Jekyll & Hyde’s psychic equation.]

2 “Swallowing up” may be literal, in the case of a cannibal, for example, or

metaphorical.

3 Trickster: William Hynes and William Doty note in their introduction to Mythical Trickster Figures (1993) that the idea of a trickster archetype is controversial: some believe it is universal, while others see it as culture-specific. Investigate some definitions of the

archetype (see also below) and, using particular examples, argue for or against its culture-

specificity in American popular culture.

4 Doppelgänger: The denouement of Alan Moore’s Batman: The Killing Joke (1988) finds the hero and the villain, who have spent the novel in pursuit of each other, sharing a

joke, implying an identification of one with the other. There are also doppelgängers

in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Fight Club: How does the notion of the doppelgänger complicate the relationship of the hero archetype

to that of the villain? [Again, the doppelganger idea is somewhat culturally variable. Mr.

Hyde may be considered a doppelganger. Neff plays Dietrichson’s double in Double

Indemnity, a film with a title that announces its interest in duplicity or double-dealing. We have wondered if perhaps Alex Forrest is some sort of double of Beth in Fatal Attraction. Portia and Nerissa have double identities in The Merchant of Venice. Fight Club includes what appears to be a paranormal phenomenon.

5 Dorian Gray’s opposition is between art and nature or artifice and “reality.”