Fall 2307 Introduction to Fiction Mid-Term
Due via e-mail Thursday, October 25th, @ 11:00 a.m.
brandon.shuler@ttu.edu

The student chooses one question from each section. The questions are weighted by difficulty, 45 points, 35 points, and 20 points. Students choose any questions they prefer, but the student must pay attention to the questions’ weights. Students have the opportunity to score from a total of 135 points down to 60 points. The instructor expects well-thought out, well-reasoned, thesis-driven arguments supported by the course’s primary sources. The primary sources begin with Horace’s Ars Poetica and concludes with Hesse’s Siddhartha. The instructor does not want secondary sources included, unless those secondary sources are archetypes of common literary knowledge: Genesis Eden story and the such. Each question requires a 500-word response, typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12 point, with a works cited following the answer the work belongs to. Students may not contact the instructor with specific questions; however, Twitter discussion is allowed between instructor and classmates, even encouraged.

GENERAL THEMES

1.  (45 points) Discuss the changing roles of fate versus freewill across the texts we have read thus far. How is fate versus freewill generally portrayed as a literary value, and what does this suggest about the human experience?
2.  (35 points) As discussed in class, a general connecting theme across the texts—excluding Horace and Aristotle—is the theme of water. In each text water plays a significant, yet dramatically different role. What are these connecting or divergent themes and what claim does this hold on the human imagination arise from?
3. (20 points) The search for ‘truth’ dominates our authors’ imaginations, but we witness their characters’ searches for it driven by different needs. Each character ultimately finds a truth, but is the truth they find the truth they expected to find when their journeys began? What does this suggest about the human condition and experience, and what is the driving force that compels the individual to search for the truth?

CHARACTER ANALYSIS

1. (45 points) Death plays a significant role in a number of our texts. In our texts, death is portrayed in favorable and unfavorable contexts. These deaths often occur along engendered constructions, changing or privileging a character’s agency: Jocasta kills herself, Oedipus blinds himself; Ophelia kills herself, Hamlet is killed by another; Kamala is killed by a snake, Siddhartha lives. What are the roles of death, and how does death promote or demote the respective character’s agency? Compare or contrast any characters or focus on the specific role of death across texts.
2. (35 points) In our texts, Nature (the environmental world) plays an important part, even finding itself personified in many places. Nature transcends its role of setting and becomes a character that shapes and melds our human characters. Discuss how Nature becomes a character, and how Nature’s character becomes a driver of plot or a shaping element of the texts’ human characterizations.
3. (20 points) Choose any two characters and analyze them through the lens of Horace’s and/or Aristotle’s ideals of characterization. Are these characters believable, probable, and tangible? Can the reader relate to the characters, and do the characters evoke empathy from the reader?

LITERARY AWARENESS

1.  (45 points) Horace and Aristotle privilege different literary elements—plot, setting, characterization, thought, diction—when determining the story’s critical success. The student will choose two of these elements to discuss in relation with Horace and Aristotle. How do Horace’s and Aristotle’s privileged literary elements complement each other, and how do they disagree? The student will use specific examples from our reading list by comparing works we have read in addition to Horace and Aristotle to support Horace’s and Aristotle’s claims and complement the student’s assertions.
2.  (35 points) Define mimesis and verisimilitude from Ars Poetica and Poetics. Once the student defines these concepts, discuss how the two work to complement each other. As the student answers this, the instructor expects specific examples from the primary fictional texts. Use examples from the other books we have read to support your claims and clarify the definitions’ literary purposes and importances.
3.  (20 points) Discuss the role and structure of plot, as defined by Aristotle’s Poetics. After providing a plot definition and structure, the student will choose one of the texts, excluding Oedipus Rex, and discuss Aristotle’s plot structure in relation to their chosen text.