Research Essay
Write an essay of about 1500-2000 words on one of the following topics. Your essay must integrate material from at least three secondary sources. You may use material obtained through the LRC from academic electronic databases and from print sources such as books, articles, newspapers, and magazines. Only one of your sources can come from the free Internet. Be sure to include both in-text citations and bibliographical entries for all your sources.
Remember that this assignment is an essay, not a report. Use the information you obtain from secondary sources to support your own interpretation of the work you are analyzing. This is also a chance for you to engage with other literary criticism and to evaluate and consider other complex or related points of view about your text. For this reason, it is important to figure out your own ideas about the works before you do any research. Please make sure that your essay is well-organized and carefully written in MLA format, and that it makes a specific argument. Remember that mechanics count, so do please leave yourself time to take your paper through that all-important copy-editing and proof-reading process. Please feel free to consult with me at any point in the writing process.
Note: You should attend the research essay peer editing session to offer comments, feedback, and constructive suggestions to your fellow students. Please attach the peer-edited evaluation sheet, along with the peer-edited draft research essay, to your final essay.
1. Compare Frost’s “The Road not Taken” and Thomas’ “Do not Go Gentle into that Good Night”, and discuss the extent to which each poet is able to convey thoughts subtler and more profound than an initial reading of his poem might suggest.
2. Robert Browning wrote “My Last Duchess” at about the same time when Lord Tennyson published his first dramatic monologue “Ulysses” in the Victorian times. Evaluate the extent of Victorianism in these poems and discuss the similarities and differences between them.
3. From the very outset, the men and women in “Trifles” perceive the events and details from diverging perspectives. Discuss in your essay how these differences result in establishing two competing ethical paradigms of justice in the play.
4. To what extent does the setting and the physical location of the characters contribute to the theme of “Trifles”? Consider the location of the house, the time of the year and temperature of the house, the women following the men into the kitchen, the unfinished dishes, men crisscrossing the stage several times, the absence of the crime and of Mrs. And Mr. Wright on the stage, and so forth.
Essay topics on Indian Horse
5. “Indian Horse finds the granite solidity of Wagamese’s prose polished to a lustrous sheen; brisk, brief, sharp chapters propel the reader forward. He seamlessly braids together his two traditions: English literary and aboriginal oral. So audible is Saul’s voice, that I heard him stop speaking whenever I closed the book…Wagamese crafts an unforgettable work of art.” (Donna Bailey Nurse National Post 2012-03-09). To what extent do you agree that Wagamese successfully combines the vitality and power of the oral story telling tradition with English literary tradition to explore heritage, identity, nature, salvation, and gratitude in his work?
6. Angie Abdou remarks, “Indian Horse does not provide a bland intellectual understanding of the legacy of residential schools, in the way that a textbook might. Rather, Wagamese delivers his lesson straight to the heart.. . . Wagamese fills Indian Horse with beauty and poetry and humour and love. He also fills it with HOCKEY!” To what extent do you agree with Abdou’s statement?
7. Commenting on Indian Horse, Wagamese says that it “allows Canadians the opportunity to have an emotional reaction to the story because it’s very direct and deliberately underwritten. It would have been really easy to go over the top and make it even more bleak and harrowing than it is, but my intention wasn’t to shock anybody or to cause anybody anger or anxiety.” To what extent do you agree with Wagamese’s statement?
8. Micaela Maftei remarks, “Wagamese’s writing is carefully crafted, and the book moves like a river – smoothly, often with no hint of the many layers operating beneath what we read, but swiftly enough that at times it cannot be put down. Wagamese does not shy away from including the more hideous aspects of Canada’s history of residential schools and racism, but neither does he resist bringing in the moments of intense, almost blinding beauty that punctuate Saul’s difficult road back into his past” To what extent do you agree with Maftei’s statement?
9. Donna Bailey Nurse comments in National Post that “Wagamese’s writing qualifies as an act of courage, for we are in the midst of one of the most effective silencing campaigns in generations: People who dare to address historical wrongs are regularly accused of whining; unbelievably, the word ‘victim’ has become a derogatory term. Yet, Wagamese writes without apology; and with such specificity and emotional restraint the reader sometimes forgets to breathe.” To what extent do you agree with Nurse’s view?
10. In A Metis Game , Stephen Marche asserts that “hockey fuses an Aboriginal spirit with modern technology, reflecting the great Canadian dream of being at once totally modern and totally Aboriginal, belonging to the whole world and to this place, at home in the city and in the wilderness.” To what extent do you agree with Marche’s statement?
11. Stephen Marche remarks, “Hockey belongs among the greatest manifestations of sport because its joyous howl has never been entirely muffled; its roots lie just below the surface. Hockey is a metaphor for life in the North. . . . Hockey became manageable, civilized, urbanized, brought within the walls, but that is Canada, too—a country of wild boys and girls who need to be civilized. The wildness at the heart of the game disturbs us and also refreshes us.” To what extent do you agree that Indian Horse is much more than just a hockey novel as it manages to capture the beauty and wonder of Canada’s game while also being a meaningful and thought-provoking story of the Aboriginal experience in Canada.
12.
To what extent do you agree that Indian Horse is so many things: “[I]t is a mystical tale; it is an ode to the good old hockey game and its power to lift players above their situations; it is a story of a system that fails and fails its children in horrifying ways; it is a story of healing…This is ultimately a hopeful and beautiful book.” (Susan Fish Guelph Mercury 2012-06-01).
13. “Wagamese’s compelling novel harnesses two quintessentially Canadian themes, hockey and colonialism, to create an exhilarating and heart-breaking story. Indian Horse reads like ‘powerful medicine, allowing vital teachings to be shared'” (Yutaka Dirks Briar Patch Magazine 2012-08-15). To what extent do you agree that Indian Horse strikes a fine balancing act by exposing the horrors of the country’s residential schools while also celebrating Canada’s national game?
14. Warren Cariou remarks that Indigenous literature has not only given us “stories of dispossession, of the loss of land and language and identity, but . . . also, crucially, . . . narratives of persistence and survival and even celebrations.” To what extent do you think that Indian Horse highlights both the contemporary indigenous reality and human experience in general through the transformative power of narrative that cuts across histories?
15. You may propose a topic of your own choice. It must be approved by me by March 6.
Some more discussion questions on Indian Horse:
1. Explore the importance of Saul’s grandmother in the narrative.
2. How might Hockey serve the novel as a metaphor for Canada’s history of ‘Contact-Conflict’ with First Nations people?
3. Structurally, the wild rice harvest and playing hockey enclose Saul’s residential school experience. Examine the purpose of this structure.
4. How is Saul’s gift from Shabogeesick a unifying element in the novel?
5. Daniel Francis tells us that “Textbook Indians” are defined by what they lack. Choose one (or two) items from his list and demonstrate how Indian Horse undermines this long held erroneous belief.