2004: Critic Roland Barthes has said, “Literature is the question minus the answer.” Choose
a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes’ observation, write an essay in which you analyze
a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the
author’s treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid
mere plot summary.
Essay
N
does a pretty good job of addressing the prompt in a way that leads to a well
written, easy to follow essay. They did a good job showing how the search for
the best world in Candide represents
literature being a question without an answer. The student used specific
examples from the novel and puts in enough plot points for the audience to
understand what was happening in the novel. What really put this essay over the
top was the interpretation of what a possible answer could be from the line “tending
our garden”. This was a pretty good essay, but I wish the writer had done some
more analysis or gone into greater detail about some other elements, maybe
about the diction used or structure or something. There were also a few discrepancies
in the writer’s word choice as he used some more “elevated” words in some
places and more colloquial terms in others (amongst v. kicked out).
Essay
J
uses Mark Twain’s Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn to answer the prompt, and while definitely pointing out a
universal question in the literature, fails to show how it really lacks the
answer. The question, what does it mean to be free?, according to the student’s
analysis, is almost answered in the novel. To me it seemed that this essay was
more illustrating how one can never be free rather than literature being a question
without the answer. This essay also contained a lot of plot points, more so
than was needed in my opinion, and almost no analysis of any elements of the
reading, like diction, syntax, or language. If the writer had focused more on
proving the question of the meaning of freedom was not answered and analyzed techniques
or effects in the writing that provide evidentiary support, this essay could
have been much better. In the end, this wasn’t a terrible essay; it just hedged
around the prompt question and didn’t answer it as well as it could have.
Essay
U
was very poorly done. After explaining the premise of the book, the essayist
finally gets into the question in the literature. While the question itself
(does anything ever stay the same?) has promise, the way the author addresses
it and introduces it is atrocious. In my opinion, the sentence connecting to
the question (“His main goal in the novel is to ‘prevent things from falling
apart’.”) doesn’t even relate to the question! Just because one tries to keep
things from falling apart does not mean that one is trying to keep things from
changing, it could even mean a change is needed to keep things from falling
apart! Once the question was stated the writer provided a lackluster attempt to
show that there was no answer, but in doing so showed the answer. The writers
question was “does anything ever stay the same” and a page later the author
writes “changes began to form” and “that things do change & never stay the
same.” Overall I would say this was a bad essay
that scarcely answered the prompt and lacked everything but a plot
summary.
Caitlin,
ReplyDeleteDid we call each other or something, 'cause you and I analyzed the same responses, but that just means I've got a good benchmark for comparison. Like you, I tore into the third response, finding almost nothing worth reading there, and your other two responses were pretty spot-on. My one criticism of this post would be that there aren't enough examples for my liking. The first time I wrote a response to an open prompt I was told by all of those assigned to respond to my blog that I was lacking in examples; and while your post has more examples than my first one, I still would like more. Also, you might want to add in your first response what other elements might need to be expanded upon. Otherwise, a good job on the responses!
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ReplyDeleteCaitlin,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I find the majority of the essays we read fairly painful in general, and I admire your kind analysis of these three. Four sentences into the first one and I was already annoyed. The author writes, Upon being kicked out of his castle due to his love, Candide begins his painful journey to answer the begging question, why? Does the first part of that make any sense? Due to his love of what? Cheese pizza? Penny loafers? I mean come on now, I think a bit of elaboration isn’t too much to ask.
The lack of textual evidence/connections between the prompt and the story start off as weak in the first essay and only decrease in quality in the others, as you well know. You’d do well to further point this out in your comments and provide evidence as to why this is the case.
Excellent responses!
Caitlin,
ReplyDeleteYour responses to each of the student essays are pretty good! I would also just say that if you added more examples or quotes from the essays then your responses would be great! I also enjoyed your brutal honesty in the third essay. I would think it's a little harsh but then I realize how bad the third essays usually are. I can't say mine right now would be much better though! We've have learned quite a bit about writing these essays but I still am not prepared to writing a well done one. How do you think you would have done with this prompt? Throughout your responses you talked about a lot of the DIDLS in the essays, which is great! Overall, nice job picking apart these essays!