Professor E. Bohls
Spring 2010
[email protected]
Phone 346-5484
Office: 527 PLC
Hours: T 12-1, W 1-3
and by appt.
ENGLISH 104: INTRODUCTION TO FICTION
What makes a good story? Whether it’s strong on plot or style, told just in words or with pictures, a
well-told story transports us into another place and reminds us what it means to be alive.
Narratives of all kinds select and shape experience for maximum impact. In this course you will
strengthen your own writing and increase your understanding and enjoyment of literature. The
course requires you to read the stories carefully, develop ideas about them, polish your prose, and
treat class meetings as vital.
TEXTS (UO Bookstore):
R. S. Gwynn, ed. Fiction: A Pocket Anthology, 6th edition
Art Spiegelman, Maus, Volumes I & II
Additional readings on Blackboard
REQUIREMENTS
30% Paper I, 3-4 pages, due Tuesday, April 27
30% Paper II, 3-4 pages, due Thursday, May 27
20% Final exam, in class, Monday, June 7. No early or makeup exams.
15% Book group assignments: writing, small group discussion.
5% Participation and pop quizzes (quizzes cannot be made up)
Late paper policy: I accept one late paper per term; use this option wisely. If you choose to hand
your paper in late, you must inform me by the due date by phone, email or in person. “On time”
means in class, on the due date. A late paper is due at the next class meeting after the due date.
Attendance and participation: I will take attendance at every class using a sign-in sheet. It is your
responsibility to arrive on time and sign in. More than 3 absences will lower your grade without
warning; you need not bring me individual excuses for absence. I very much appreciate your talking
in class, even (especially) if it’s an effort for you. Participating in class discussion is also part of
your grade and will help you master the material and get ideas for your papers.
Writing assignments: I am looking for polished gems: thoughtful, concise, graceful treatments
with a clear focus. Every word counts. Plan on writing four drafts, minimum, for each paper.
SCHEDULE OF ASSIGNMENTS
WEEK 1
Terms: 1st/ 2nd/3rd person, flat, round
T Mar 30
In Gwynn, ed.: Paley 220 (read in class)
H Apr 1
Intro 1-20, Cheever 189, Kincaid 387, Jen 420
WEEK 2
Terms: realism, social/historical context, symbol
T Apr 6
Jewett 58, Yates 238
H Apr 8
NO CLASS
WEEK 3 (Blue Group)
Terms: coming-of-age story, sense of place, turning point
T Apr 13
Wright 170, Oates 310
H Apr 15
Steinbeck 159, Ellison 257
Week 4 (Red Group)
Terms: unreliable narrator, magic realism, frame narrative, satire, foreshadow, synechdoche,
metafiction
T Apr 20
Carver 295, Gilb 389, García Marquez 252
H Apr 22
Gautreaux 370, Atwood 326, Erdrich 411
Week 5 (Yellow Group)
Terms: flashback, epiphany
T Apr 27
Willa Cather, “Neighbor Rosicky” (Blackboard)
PAPER 1 DUE APRIL 27 (3-4 pages)
H Apr 29
James Joyce, “The Dead” (Blackboard)
Week 6
Term: parable
T May 4
Joyce
H May 6
Franz Kafka, “Before the Law,” “In the Penal Colony” (Blackboard)
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Week 7 (Green Group)
Terms: Holocaust, survivor, pogrom, ghetto, comics, cartoon, medium, icon, panel, gutter, closure,
allusion
T May 11
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics, selections (Blackboard)
H May 13
Ida Fink, “Traces,” “A Scrap of Time,” “The Holocaust and the Jews”(Blackboard)
Week 8 (Orange Group)
T May 18
Maus I, Chapters 1-3
H May 20
Maus I, Chapters 4 & 5
Week 9 (Purple Group)
T May 25
Maus I, Chapter 6
H May 27
Maus II, Chapter 1 & 2
PAPER 2 DUE MAY 27 (3-4 pages)
Week 10
T June 1
Maus II, Chapter 3
H June 3
Maus II, Chapter 4 & 5
FINAL EXAM MONDAY, JUNE 7, 1:00 P.M.
NO EARLY OR MAKE-UP EXAMS WITHOUT DOCUMENTED MEDICAL EMERGENCY:
IF YOU CANNOT BE PRESENT AT THE FINAL EXAM, DO NOT TAKE THE CLASS!!!
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PAPERS I & 2: Both papers for this course are open topic, based on your own ideas about the
stories. You may focus on one story or more than one, as long as your argument completely covers
the amount of material you choose. The main goal is that the paper has to contain serious and
sustained close reading of at least one quotation from a story. I will grade the essays by the
following criteria:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Detailed, sharp-eyed, interpretive close reading of quotation(s).
A clear, strong main point supported by evidence from the story/stories.
Clear linkage of each paragraph to the main point.
Polished, well-revised prose with no grammar or spelling errors.
A. These papers are close reading essays, not research papers. Do not consult secondary or critical
sources. Instead, develop your own ideas about the texts. Pick a quotation from a story that
catches your imagination and gives you something to say. Sit down to write with that quotation in
front of you. Look at it very carefully and thoroughly and write down all the ideas that occur to you.
Look closely at the word choices and meanings, images, figures of speech, voice (1st, 2nd or 3rd
person), point of view, dialogue, repeated patterns of any kind, and relation to the story as a whole.
Come up with your own interpretations of all these details and of the author’s writing. Don’t be
afraid to go out on a limb with your ideas and interpretations. Include the quotation in your paper.
If you are analyzing more than one quotation, repeat this close reading process with each quotation.
B. Next, start reorganizing your writing. Working from the close reading, come up with a main
point about the story/stories. Write an introductory paragraph for your paper explaining the main
point. The intro should do 3 things: state your thesis (main point), declare the paper’s focus, and
give a “road map” to the paper (a “sneak preview” of the points you intend to make).
C. Organize your close reading into paragraphs, each paragraph illustrating a different sub-point
that supports your main point. If some ideas or sentences don’t seem to fit in, cut them out, or
make their relevance to the main point clearer. Add a topic sentence to each paragraph, making
clear its connection to the main point of the essay.
D. Go over the essay again, making sure each paragraph connects to the introduction and to the
other paragraphs. Add transition (connector) sentences and expand on your thoughts.
E. Revise the essay’s style. Cut needless words and word repetitions. Break any over-long, run-on
sentences into shorter ones. Read your sentences aloud and make your prose concise and graceful.
F. Sometimes the main point isn’t clear in our mind until after you’re done writing. Did this happen
to you? Do you need to go back and modify your main point to match the paper that you’ve
written? (Congratulations. This means your thoughts grew in the process of writing.) Also, does
your concluding paragraph seem forced? Maybe you can just delete it. Sometimes the paper is
really over in the next-to-last paragraph. Or maybe the conclusion needs to change, too, because
you’ve changed your ideas.
G. An important tip: Do not summarize the story! You can assume your reader has read it and
remembers what’s going on. Organize your essay according to the logic of your argument, not
according to the order of the story itself. You don’t need to talk about everything that’s in the story,
just enough to make the point you want to make. Instead of summarizing information, you can
often substitute a direct quotation from the text combined with your own close reading and
interpretation.
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H. Check the essay’s spelling and grammar. Consult the Seven Key Problems sheet (below).
I. Your writing should be double-spaced. Long quotations should be indented and single-spaced
with no quotation marks around them. Shorter quotations should be integrated with your prose
and have quotation marks at the beginning and end of the author’s words. You don’t need to type
out the title and author of our textbook, but please do give page numbers in parentheses after each
quotation.
SEVEN KEY PROBLEMS: After you write a paper, please go over it to make sure it contains none of
these problems.
Symbol in margin
Name of problem
Explanation
D-MOD
Dangling modifier
Phrase before comma should
modify first noun after comma
Wrong: As a mother of five, my station wagon’s always on the road.
Right: As a mother of five, I’m always on the road in my station wagon.
D-PREP
Dangling preposition
Preposition at end of sentence
Wrong: These are the areas people should be evacuated from.
Right: These are the areas from which people should be evacuated.
L/A
Like/as
Use “as” after non-be verb.
Wrong: They act like they should.
Right: They act as they should.
CS
Comma splice
Comma too weak to join 2
sentences
Wrong: He tries to forget, however, it proves impossible.
Right: He tries to forget; however, it proves impossible.
VT
Verb tense change
Mixing past & present times
Wrong: He tries to forget; however, it proved impossible.
Right: He tries to forget; however, it proves impossible.
AGR
Subject/verb agreement
Mixing singular & plural
Wrong: The students, including the ASUO President, agrees with me.
Right: The students, including the ASUO President, agree with me.
ITS/IT’S
“Its” is the possessive; “it’s” with apostrophe means it is.
Wrong: Its a shame. The war and it’s aftermath still affect us.
Right: It’s a shame. The war and its aftermath still affect us.
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KEY TERMS FOR STUDYING FICTION & COMICS (FINAL EXAM)
Narration (who talks): Point of view (1st, 2nd, 3rd person), omniscient, limited, unreliable narrator,
tone
Narrative flow (what happens when): Beginning, middle, end, linear, non-linear, flashback,
foreshadowing, turning point (crisis/climax)
Genres (kinds of story): Coming-of-age or rite-of-passage story, realism, magical realism, epiphany,
frame tale, experimental fiction or metafiction, comedy, satire
Imagery (non-literal language): Metaphor, symbol, synechdoche (the part for the whole, or for our
purposes, material objects for the whole), and just plain imagery (word pictures that summon up
vivid images).
Characterization (how writers turn a bunch of words into what seem like real people): round, flat,
caricature, motivation
Setting: Social and historical context, sense of place
Comics: Medium, form, content, icon, closure, frame/panel, gutter
BOOK GROUP ASSIGNMENTS
Red
Week 3
April 13/15
Blue
Week 4
April 20/22
Yellow
Week 5
April 27/29
Green
Week 7
May 11/13
Orange
Week 8
May 18/20
Purple
Week 9
May 25/27
Your responsibilities:
*Read the stories or chapters assigned for your week ahead of time
*Writing assignment (email to Blackboard): due on the first date listed above
*Small group discussion: the second date listed
Writing assignment
By the end of the day on the Friday before your group’s week, email me (using Blackboard) a
written document containing:
1. Two questions and/or discussion topics on the stories or chapters assigned for your group’s
week. For stories, your questions should aim to compare and/or contrast the week’s stories
with each other. For Maus, questions should use our key terms to analyze it as a work of
fiction. These ideas will form the basis for your small group discussion on the Friday of
your group’s week.
2. Your favorite sentence from the week’s reading (with page number).
3. Written responses to the study questions in the syllabus (below).
Small Group Discussion
On Friday of your book group week, the class will break into small groups and each book group
member will lead a discussion in one group, using your study questions submitted to Blackboard as
a starting point. Attendance is mandatory at this class; if you miss it, you will receive NO partial
credit for your written work. If absences are necessary due to emergency or serious illness, they
require prior notification by phone, email or in person and/or written documentation such as a
doctor’s note. In most such cases I will reschedule your participation to another group.
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STUDY QUESTIONS
Week 3
1. Wright, “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” and Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You
Been?” Each of these is a coming-of-age story: each tells of a teenager, someone on the threshold of
adulthood, eager to grow up. A frightening event ends with the young person leaving home. In the
first part of each story, how does each author convey to us the young person’s frustration with life
at home? Find examples of the specific writing techniques each author uses to let us know what it
feels like to be this person in this scary situation.
2. Steinbeck, “The Chrysanthemums”: in this story, a stranger briefly enters the life of a woman
living in an isolated, rural location. What do we learn about the woman’s character from this
central incident? What difference does it make that Steinbeck’s story is written in the third person,
rather than first person? How does the author convey a sense of place, and what does the setting
contribute to our understanding of the story?
3. Ellison, “A Party Down at the Square”: What do we learn about this first-person narrator, and
how do we learn it, as he tells his story? Are we given any clues to his attitude toward what is
happening in the Square? What elements of the story’s setting contribute to its effect, and how?
(e.g. night, rain, plane cutting power lines, crowd’s behavior, etc.)
Week 4
1. Raymond Carver, “Cathedral,” and Dagoberto Gilb, “Look on the Bright Side”: each of these stories
is told in the first person by an unreliable narrator—someone about whom readers know, perhaps,
more than he knows about himself, or at any rate someone whose judgment we cannot trust. What
clues are we given in each story that the narrator is unreliable? What is it about each narrator that
might make a reader want to distance herself from him?
2. Gabriel García Marquez, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings,” and Tim Gautreaux, “Died and
Gone to Vegas”: each of these stories stretches reality for comic or poetic effect. How does the angel
(if he is one) in García Marquez’s story compare with your idea of what an angel should be? Why
might the author choose to portray an angel in this way? In the seven tall tales, or lies, told by
Gautreaux’s card players, do people behave in believable ways even though the situations are less
than believable? Give examples to support your answer. Which tall tale is your favorite and why?
3. Margaret Atwood, “Happy Endings,” and Louise Erdrich, “The Red Convertible”: Read Erdrich’s
story a second time, knowing what happens in the end, and think about its structure. What does
each of its nine short sections (or ten counting the very end) contribute to your understanding of
what the story is “about”? Does Erdrich foreshadow the ending in ways you didn’t notice the first
time you read it? If you were to summarize this story’s plot in the way Atwood summarizes plots A
through F in “Happy Endings,” what important elements of Erdrich’s story would be lost? Is there a
serious lesson to be learned about writing fiction (or reading it) from Atwood’s tongue-in-cheek
piece?
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Week 5
1. Willa Cather’s story, “Neighbor Rosicky,” is structured in six sections, alternating between the
present time and flashbacks, and sometimes narrating from the points of view of family members
(Mary, Polly) and that of Doctor Ed in addition to the point of view of the main character, Rosicky.
How do the flashbacks to the younger Rosicky’s life in New York and London help us to understand
the man he has become at the end of his life? How does Cather convey a sense of place and of her
character’s special relationship to the Nebraska prairie that has become his home? What is special
about Rosicky’s personality—what is his unique gift, and how does Cather reveal this? Finally, in
what specific ways is this story about “the immigrant experience”?
2. James Joyce, “The Dead”: Joyce’s long short story has a large cast of characters in the extended
party scene, though it ends with just Gabriel and his wife, after the party, in their hotel room. Why
does Joyce need all these characters (if he does) for his portrayal of Gabriel and his epiphany at the
story’s end? What do we learn about Gabriel from his various social interactions at the party? Why
does he feel the need to disparage the younger generation in his speech, and why does he hesitate
to quote the poet Browning? Is he truly as generous as his wife describes him? What might the
snow represent or symbolize? Who are “the dead”?
Week 7
1. Ida Fink, “A Scrap of Time” and “Traces”: the first story takes time as a theme, exploring the way
these Jews’ experience of time changed when the Germans began rounding them up for deportation
to death camps. Time in this minimalist short story is complex: an older first-person narrator
remembers the experiences and feelings of a child. What is added to the story by the choice of this
retrospective point of view? What difference does it make to our understanding of this experience
that the narrator was a child at the time this happened? “Traces” is told in the third person. Why do
you think Fink chose third person narration for this story, rather than the first person as in “A Scrap
of Time”? What do we learn from this story about the role played by photographs in a person’s
memory of a traumatic experience? What is the relation between what is pictured in the photo and
what the protagonist remembers? Does the photo give us a metaphor?
2. McCloud, Understanding Comics: Why is it important to McCloud that we distinguish form from
content, or medium from message, in order to analyze comics? What is an icon and in what way are
comics iconic? What is closure and why is this concept so important to understanding comics?
Week 8
1. Maus I, Chapters 1 & 2: What does the roller-skating incident communicate about Vladek and
about Artie’s relationship with his father? Why do you think Spiegelman chose to put it at the
beginning of the book? What allusions are involved in his choice to depict Jews as mice? (Look at
the page before the first page of pictures, p. 4.) Comment on the effect of this choice on you as a
reader. What can we say so far about the relation between the frame narrative in the present – the
story of Artie getting Vladek to tell him about his experiences long ago—and the narrative of
Vladek’s past? Why do you think Spiegelman chose to include the story of Vladek’s former
girlfriend, Lucia, and their breakup, even though, as Vladek points out, it has “nothing to do with
Hitler,” and even though Artie shows himself promising Vladek that he won’t put it in? Why choose
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“The Sheik” as a chapter title? What do you make of Vladek’s obsessive pill counting? Might it be a
metaphor? For what? Is Vladek's glass eye a metaphor?
2. Maus I, Chapter 3, “Prisoner of War”: What more do we learn about Vladek and Artie and their
relationship as the frame narrative continues with Artie’s dinner at Vladek and Mala’s and, at the
end of the chapter, Vladek throwing out Artie’s coat? What do we learn about Artie from the way he
tells about his Army experience, and especially about the man he killed? What visual features of the
drawings in this chapter stand out for you as especially effective or significant?
3. Maus I, Chapter 4, “The Noose Tightens”: Same question for this chapter (significant visual
features). Why does Spiegelman choose to make some panels larger than others? Are significant
things going on in some of the large panels? How did this chapter’s frontispiece (the drawing at the
beginning of the chapter) affect you? What are some of Vladek’s tactics for making the best of a bad
situation as things continue to get worse for the Polish Jews? In what ways does Spiegelman
convey the effect that telling this story—reliving these experiences—had on his father?
4. Maus I, Chapter 5, “Mouse Holes”: Besides the continuation of the frame narrative and Vladek’s
narrative of the events of the 1940s, this chapter includes something else: Art Spiegelman’s earlier
comic, “Prisoner on the Hell Planet,” about his mother’s suicide, which his father has just read for
the first time. Compare the style in which “Prisoner” is drawn to that of the rest of Maus. Why do
you think Spiegelman chose to insert “Prisoner” into Maus? What is its relationship to the book as a
whole? Which 1940s events depicted in this chapter seem to have affected Artie’s mother, Anja,
most deeply? What do we learn about her character and her relationship to her husband? What
was a ghetto, and how does Spiegelman depict ghetto life? Why does he include the diagram of the
bunker?
Week 9
1. Maus I, Chapter 6, “Mouse Trap”: In this chapter’s frame narrative, why do you think Spiegelman
chose to put in his own worries about the choices he’s making as he draws his comic about his
father? Why does he give us so much about Vladek’s deteriorating relationship with his second
wife, Mala, also a camp survivor? Consider the parts played by the various non-Jewish Poles in this
chapter: Richieu’s former governess Janina; Mr Lukowski; Mrs. Kawka; Mrs. Motonowa and her
husband; the children in the street. Looking back historically, how are we to judge these people’s
behavior? What do their actions and choices teach us about the social dynamics of totalitarianism?
2. Maus II, Chapter 1, “Mauschwitz”: notice that the frame narrative is taking up more space as the
remembered1940s events get more frightening. What is the logic of Spiegelman’s choice to do it
this way? What do we learn about the difficulties of growing up as the child of Auschwitz
survivors? In what ways is Artie, as well as his father, “whacked up” by Vladek’s wartime
experiences? Which characters and interactions stood out to you at the beginning of Vladek’s time
at Auschwitz? How would you describe Vladek’s attitude as he recounts his successful survival
tactics in the camp?
3. Maus II, Chapter 2, “Auschwitz (Time Flies)”: how did you react to the visual pun in the chapter
title and the frontispiece (“time flies”)? Do a “close reading” of the large panel at the bottom of p.
41, noting significant visual details and their effect in relation to the panel as a whole and its place
in the novel. Why do you think Spiegelman chose to depict his visit to his psychiatrist, another
Auschwitz survivor? What do we learn from Vladek’s point of view about his wife Anja’s experience
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at Auschwitz? Compare the couple’s responses to their traumatic situation. Do you believe Vladek
when he says, “About Auschwitz, nobody can understand” (p. 64)? If that’s true, then why is it so
important to Art Spiegelman to make the effort to represent and convey his parents’ horrible
experience?
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