Pacific Novel, fall 2001

Paper 2

This paper is an exercise in close reading and focussed literary analysis. Discuss one exemplary or representative (or interesting) scene or a motif / image that runs through the novels, Woman in the Dunes or Masks. This should provide the ground for a consideration of how the novel presents a key thematic concern. Be specific in your discussion, centering it on a claim you want to make about the passage / image. This claim should be a way to relate your chosen topic to the novel as a whole, showing how the micro-level relates to the whole. In other words, frame your discussion by a claim, support that with detailed discussion of particular, and then extend your argument to consider the significance of those details to the novel as a whole.

Here are a few suggestions, rich passages that bear close reading and rereading:
Abe: 67, 158, 176-77, 230-31
Enchi: 66-68, 88-90, 91, 126-27
(You may, of course, select your own passage.)

If you’d rather look at a recurrent motif, choose two or three examples; that will give you the necessary focus. My suggestions are the obvious ones. For Dunes, sand, insects, "everyday life" (or "village"). For Masks, spirit possession, literature (Genji or criticism), and, well, masks.
(You may, of course, choose your own.)

If you would like to use this paper as the beginning of your final project, you are encouraged to do so. If you choose to do this, I would ask that you incorporate into it the kind of close reading and focussed attention to textual specifics that this paper is designed to give you practice with.

Papers should be 4-5 pages, and are due 10/29 in class.