Part A
Reading and responding to short story for literary analysis (300 words)
Instructions
Read Edgar Allan Poe’s
Black Cat and take notes. Prepare for the literary analysis project by:
1) recording the major themes and plot points that you spot in the story
2) raising three questions about what you see in the story, questions that might need to be resolved with historical or literary research
3) identifying three passages that best help you to understand the story’s overall meaning, followed by some brief thoughts or questions about those passages
Part B
Instructions 300 words
Thanksgiving week make up: reflection on unreliable narration
As an online class, Monday and Tuesday are school days, so I am assigning one thing. I will give you until the end of the week to do it rather than making it due by Tuesday night. While this assignment relates to the Black Cat, it is not part of the ongoing writing project, not directly. It is just practice with a useful literary concept. It must be done by due date (it’s HW) and cannot be turned in late.
To set up, watch thisLinks to an external site. video, which is an adaptation of The Black Cat. You might also want to watch this quick reminder video on working with literary analysis:
Answer the questions below after you watch video(s) above. Here’s a definition of unreliable narration: the narrator’s perspective might not be unbiased, clear, or otherwise safe to completely trust. Issues of sanity, honesty, complicity, and more come up here. A narrator is not a harmless and clear window through which we are faithfully shown what happened. It is potentially a distorting lens!
Instructions (answer the following prompts briefly but clearly)
1. What is your understanding of the narratorial reliability problem brought up by the video?
2. How do you imagine that this problem of narration makes reading more difficult? Where can we see this difficulty in the text?
3. Name ANOTHER problem of narratorial reliability besides the one discussed above. Where do you see it in the text?
4. How would this problem shift, or need to shift, your reading of the story?
5. Name ANOTHER problem as above and discuss where you see it?
6. How would this shift your reading?
