hello. for my english class, i have been assigned to read sylvia plaths-The Bell Jar, and then write a literary criticism paper on it. i was just wondering, as i have never read the book before, what approach would be the best to take when reading, things to look for. thanks. ialso posted this question on the published books section, but no one has replied, and it has been a week.
Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :
We keep getting questions from you on how to do your homework. Isn't that what your college professors are getting paid for?? Posted by chemo_man (Member # 3150) on :
lol, i do ask him, but he said that it is up to us to figure it out. sorry if you guys don't like questions on homework. don't worry, next month, i will be done with the class and can can back to writing for pleasure again.
Posted by chemo_man (Member # 3150) on :
i ask the same questions i post here to my professor, the writing center, and several english majors i know, i am just trying to cover all of my bases here. besides, the best advice i have gotten on my papers have come from members of hatrack!
Posted by HSO (Member # 2056) on :
Oh! Oh! I know the answers to these...
quote:what approach would be the best to take when reading
Have plenty of light, sit (or lay), open book.
quote:things to look for
Words on the page, generally speaking. See above comment about light.
Too easy.
Seriously: read it and find out what it means to you. If while you're reading it and you'd like to discuss what something might mean, then by all means ask away then.
Posted by J (Member # 2197) on :
Chemo, I say this with the gentlest intentions in the world: Some things you've just got to do yourself.
Posted by Kickle (Member # 1934) on :
I've been doing some reading up on Sylvia myself. I suggest you cruise though this site http://www.sylviaplath.de/ read some of her other works as well. I had to do a paper on her in collage and now wish I had taken the time to learn more about her life and other works rather than focusing on just The Bell Jar. It may not be what you want to hear, but widen your knowledge of the writer beyond what you gave learned in class and the book will be more interesting.
[This message has been edited by Kickle (edited March 31, 2006).]
Posted by Beth (Member # 2192) on :
My favorite literary analysis work is the stuff where you go through and demonstrate that the piece in question contradicts Biblical teachings on a number of points. You should do that! I remember lots of unbiblical behavior in "The Bell Jar."
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
I think that coming at a work of literature from the perspective of the author's life is always a little bit dangerous. Every author I know to have spoken on the subject agrees that such treatments are amusing at best.
Even when, or perhaps especially when, the work in question is substantially autobiographical, it's a dangerous game to illuminate the text with the author's biography. Plath was a writer, and she cast her novel as fiction for reasons other than an attempt to hide her identity. It is probably best to take it as it is.
Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :
Not to mention the fact that she was suicidal at the time, and that tends to skewer one's perspective...
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Probably the best approach would be to take a copy of the book, skim through the first few pages where all the copyright info and such is, skim over whatever literary intro there is (I don't know what's currently with the current edition), and when you reach page one of what Plath herself wrote, start reading more seriously. Then don't stop until you reach the end. Then write down what you think of it.
Me? Never read it...
Posted by keldon02 (Member # 2398) on :
It would probably help to read it twice.
[This message has been edited by keldon02 (edited April 01, 2006).]
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Perhaps...for school assignments such as this, I generally read through just once and relied on a then-reliable short-term memory. (I read the whole of "Anna Karenina" the day before we were to discuss it in class. I did all right, but right now, thirty years later (my God! that long?) I only remember two specific incidents from the narrative.)
Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :
Look up all the stuff on wikipedia you can find, then go and replace it all with spurious content so that none of your classmates will be successful. Oh, unless one of them did that first.
Posted by chemo_man (Member # 3150) on :
I would like to thank all of ya'll who gave tips on this paper, i used a few, and ended up getting an A. oh, and J, i wasn't asking for anybody to tell me how to write it, or write it for me, i was merely asking for tips on how to approach the book, and help findind a subject, that is all.
