doom!

[dopaminergic]

I have 12 days to write a research paper for my English class (Literary New Orleans) having to do with one or more of the books we read in class:

Chita by Lafcadio Hearn
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Mosquitos by William Faulkner
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
The House on Coliseum Street by Shirley Ann Grau
The Moviegoer by Walker

Comments

I can't sleep....

[aristarla]

... so I was in bed thinking of things you could write for your paper.

You could compare how Louis and Whatshername in The Awakening combat society. For Whatshername (sorry, it's been a while since I read it) she is fighting against the typical society that we live in, but Louis fights against a society created and enforced by Lestat and later by Armand and the Paris vampires. You could compare how they are punished by their respective societies by going against their "natures". In The Awakening, she is seen as unnatural because she does not readily embrace her duties as mother and wife, therefore making her less of a woman in society's eyes. And Louis refuses to embrace his vampire nature, making him less of a vampire in Lestat's eyes.

You could also compare how each of these characters are punished for their love affairs. Hers out of wedlock, and his with a child/woman. (You could argue that Louis being in love with a woman is very subversive in a world where all the rest of the strong relationships are homosexual.)

Heh. I'm a dork. And I wish I had a library card so I could read the books that I haven't read on your list.

I wonder what a paper would be like doing a personality study of Lestat and Ignatius J. Reilly, I think they would be more similar than one would think.

O.k. I'm going to try for bed again, just thought I would share.

Re: I can't sleep....

[dopaminergic]

Oooh, you just gave me a bunch of good ideas! Edna Pontillier, that's the name you can't remember :-)

But, in 7 of 8 of these books (Chita being the exception because there aren't really any important human characters...Nature is the main character and I don't think I can be that abstract in writing about Nature being nonconformist, haha) the major characters ALL combat society, they're all misfits and they don't conform. I could really pick any two of the novels and go with that. But Edna and Louis would make a great comparison. And we actually spent a fair bit of time in class talking about how Joan in the House on Coliseum Street is very much like Edna.

If I had more time to work on this I could maybe do something a lot more creative and with a deeper meaning. Alas.

Which ones haven't you read? And how on earth can you survive without a library card? I'd die if I didn't have a constant supply of new novels to read myself to sleep with every night :-)