English 204: Great Books

Prof. Milligan

SHORT ESSAY TOPICS: GROUP A

Directions: You must write an essay of 675-825 words (double-spaced with 1" margins) responding to any one topic below. Your response may be submitted in class any time up to and including the beginning of class on Thursday 4/29 (no late submissions will be counted). (See the syllabus for further general guidelines.)

1. Find three different instances in which blindness is an important concept in Oedipus the King, then examine them closely, asking yourself how Sophocles puns on, undercuts, and/or otherwise plays with the idea of blindness to make it mean something broader than the physical inability to sense light. In other words, how does Sophocles use blindness as a metaphor or symbol in the play? For your final draft, place your answer to this question (don't bother to restate the question) up front as your thesis statement, then support it with quotation and analysis of at least three examples from the play, being sure to explain how your examples support your thesis.

2. Using the excerpt from Aristotle's Poetics (Oedipus the King 109-110) and our class discussions of the concept of the hamartia or tragic flaw as background, fill in the blank in one of the following thesis statements and support it with quotation and analysis of at least three examples from the play in question:

Remember that in order to support one of these theses, your discussion must convince a reader not only that the hero does indeed possess the flaw, but also that it is the cause of his downfall.

3. Both Oedipus the King and the tale told by Chaucer's pardoner feature old men who are ill-treated by the main characters but who prove in the end to have been unusually wise (Tiresias in Oedipus, the old man on the road in "The Pardoner"). For prewriting, compare and contrast these two characters and their treatment until you arrive at what you think is the most important similarity or difference. Then argue the significance of that similarity or difference in your paper, using the guidelines for a good thesis and support as laid out in numbers 1 and 2 above. Remember that you must go beyond merely establishing that the similarity/difference exists; more importantly, you must demonstrate its specific significance.

4. Chaucer's pardoner believes his tale has a clear moral ("The love of money is the root of all evil" [339]), but does the teller of The Canterbury Tales (often equated with Chaucer himself) seem to be endorsing the same moral with his telling of the pardoner's telling of the tale? Argue an answer to this question following the guidelines for theses and support as outlined under topics 1 and 2 above.