Abduction to Rape
This week we will continue to read the novel to see where it drives–and is driven by–its characters. Read in the manner you find most suitable for this kind of novel and plot, take notes, and be prepared to describe concretely how this portion of the novel affected you.
For the weekend blogging post, I’m asking you to assemble 3-4 key passages from this segment, organized however you think is appropriate. Please create some kind of visualization* of their relations to one another, in terms of plot, character, setting, theme, etc.. Post the image of your visualization to the blog by Monday at classtime, and be prepared to discuss your passages and visualization.
*By visualization I do not mean anything fancy or polished: an Iphone picture of a colored pencil or marker or crayon drawing is fine; so is a photo of a whiteboard set of squiggles and dotted and solid lines; so is a diagram produced by powerpoint or excel or some other app. The idea is simply to get us thinking about these passages differently, and confront one another with a variety of mental maps or relations for discussion.
You are welcome to use my own thematic clusters for your collecting, or revise them or devise your own.
1. Love, Sexuality, Property
2. Class, Rank, Legitimacy
3. Morality, Sensibility, Indifference
4. Happiness and/or Pleasure
I’m going to hold off assigning more secondary criticism until we get further into the text. I’ll talk about this more in class on Monday, since I do have an assignment focused on the secondary criticism coming up.
See you soon,
DM
ENGL 8354: Jane Austen and her Reading 