English 287:  Great Books

Fall 2003

Topic Options Essay Assignments

Be sure to consult the general directions for the two out-of-class essays you write.  That is where you find information on deadlines for the two assignments, the format you should adopt in presenting them, links to the criteria by which they will evaluated, and ground rules for permissible aid in composing them.

The general form your essays will take

• All the topic options present you with tasks in comparison and contrast.  In general, you should see if there is something significant to note about both similarities and differences.  
• Be sure to be specific in your discussion of the incidents or episodes you refer to in the course of your discussion.  When you refer to an incident from a story, you should parenthetically indicate the page number(s) from our edition of the work where that incident is to be found.  Remember that pointed quotation is often an enhancement.  But specific and accurate paraphrase sufficient.
• It will be disappointing to end up merely with a list of miscellaneous similarities and differences.  A significant part of your job will be to find some way to integrate your discussion under some larger issue.  Hence, at the end, you should try to connect what you have observed to similarities and differences in the overall thematic concerns of the work or works you are discussing.

Topic Group A:  Villains

Pick one of the following pairs.  First indicate how these villains share something more specific than just villainy itself.  That is:  what are some ways in which their villainy consists in the same kind of behavior or the same kind of vices of character or exploit the same resources of character.  Then point out one or more ways in which their particular sorts of villainy diverge.  Conclude by explaining how at least one of these differences connects with some larger difference in thematic orientation between the two works in question.

1. Iago in Othello and Tartuffe in Tartuffe.
2. Iago in Othello and Mephistopheles in Faust.
3. Tartuffe in Tartuffe and Mephistopheles in Faust.

Variation:  Antagonists

1. Alcinous in The Odyssey and Iago in Othello.  (Here you might want to frame your contrast in other terms:  perhaps Alcinous strikes us a more of simply an "antagonist" than as a villain.  [That is:  villains almost always function as antagonists to the protagonist; but not all antagonists are villains.])
2. Poseidon (and other gods, on occasion) in The Odyssey, and the divine order in Oedipus the King.

Topic Group B:  Fools

Write an essay some pair of the following

1. Felix Hoenikker in Cat's Cradle.
2. Orgon in Tartuffe
3. Pangloss or Candide in Candide.
4. Othello in Othello.

Here are some subtopics it might be worth exploring, depending on the particular characters you settle on:

• fixed ideas 
• infantility
• naïveté (not the same thing as infantility)
• abstruse detachment from important facts of the world
• obsession

Topic Group C:  Heroines

Topic Group D:  Irony in Plot -- Dramatic and Situational

Explain how dramatic irony and/or situational irony as aspects of plot contribute to the overall theme for some pair of the following works:

1. Oedipus the King  
2. Othello
3. Cat's Cradle
4. Candide
5. Faust

Topic Group E:  Religious and Ethical Assumptions

Pick any two of the following works, and contrast the religious and/or ethical vision that you take to be assumed by the work as a whole.  Be sure that you explain what features of the each work lead us to the picture you attribute to it.  

• Cat's Cradle
• The Odyssey
• Oedipus the King
• The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
• Tartuffe; or The Hypocrite
• Candide, or Optimism
• Faust, Part One of the Tragedy

For some of these pairs it might be profitable to consider how they might be designed as a critique of some prominent religious or ethical outlook or historical mythology (e.g., some traditional orthodoxy, or some relative novelty)?  What premises or assumptions to they subject to criticism?  What exactly is the criticism levied?  How does the work indicate its critique?

An example of angles one might take:  

• Pangloss, Martin, and the Turkish Dervish are exponents of different views of the divine order considered in the course of Candide.  How do they differ from each other?  Which of them are we to understand as closest to the view of Voltaire himself?  (How so?)  Which of them seems closest to what you construct as the picture of the divine order at work in one of the following:
  • The Odyssey
  • Oedipus the King
  • Faust
• How do two of the following invite the reader to look with some skepticism upon certain fundamental articles of faith of traditional Christianity?  Are there nevertheless some important differences between them?
  • Oedipus the King  [Here you are licensed to exploit an anachronism:  Sophocles was of course unfamiliar with Christianity, having been born nearly half a millennium before Jesus, and nearly 850 years before St. Augustine.]
  • Bokononism in Cat's Cradle
  • Candide
  • Faust
• Is Oedipus the King a fatalist vision of human affairs?  How about Bokononism (in Cat's Cradle)?  Are the attitudes toward human life these perspectives support the same, or divergent?

  Suggestions are welcome.  Please send your comments to lyman@ksu.edu .

   Contents copyright © 2003 by Lyman A. Baker. 

Permission is granted for non-commercial educational use; all other rights reserved.

  This page last updated 17 November 2003 .