Revising Lit X: Part 1

I spent most of this weekend deciding where to go in my Lit X. Having met with you, I knew that I needed to redeine the direction I was going or I would definatly recieve a grade lower than an F by some act of god. Originally I had planned to use my 2nd Lit X book, Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie but after looking at the comments you had made, I knew it might not work (at least for the part of the paper I was working on). Sensing that I probably should just start over, I sat down and wrote an offical outline.

Topic --> The noticeable changes in female authors from contemporary to non-contemporary authors. (Emphasis on British women)
Sub Categories
- Character development
- Writing techniques/literary criticism
- Sense of social focus/voice
-Interpretation of different sexes

Though this is clearly only a rough outline of the places I plan to focus, I found that by sitting down and understanding what I needed to accomplish I feel my mind is more understanding of my goal. I went back to my paper and scratched the entire first page. I rewrote my thesis and cut out any mention of comparison of man and woman as authors (I can't even begin to think about that as a topic!). Then I realized that part of what I had said about my first Lit X book was valid and supported my character development topic. Then I decided to take your advice and write about the female experience and why that might shape an authors ability to create certain types of characters. Remembering that my 2nd book didn't fit character development as the most defining thing about it, I went back to an article I had been given by my grandmother when I explained to her my Lit X paper. The article was written in 1956 by Mark Schorer and it was the introduction to my grandmother's copy of Pride and Prejudice. The article made wonderful points about Jane Austen's ablate to create characters of her own thoughts rather than fitting of the time in history. So I added an entire part about comparing Austen and Gregory, so I think I've narrowed my paper down to the difference in character development from women of different eras relative to the female experience. Narrow enough? I hope so!

I'll be posting my Lit X once I finish all the little details, I'm still working on some paragraphs.

Female Archetypes (focus on Ursula)

Today in class we were asked to respond to a question of why we thought the chapters 3 and 4 were of importance and why the author did what he did in that portion of the book. I decided to write about Jose and how in these chapter we see the disintegration of his sanity and his over obsessiveness with the new things the gypsies bring. Jose's fascination with the new discoveries eventually drive him to become detached from the real world and thus I thought this section focused on his change from reality to insanity. I then found myself going on a tangent in my response about his wife, Ursula. Some of my classmates had touched on their opinions of Ursula in class as the evil temptress and then as somewhat of an accessory to Jose's madness, but I found her "archetype" to be very different in my mind. If you focus on just these two chapter of the book, Ursula doesn't do anything that would suggest she is in anyway evil or aiding Jose's path to self-desrtucion. Ursula is, of course, a strong woman with a personality and progatives of her own but her interests do not necessarily have malicious intent towards anyone (specifically not Jose). This section of the book focuses not on her, rather her husband but there was one part of the book I recall specifically that proves (at least to me) that Ursula is not an evil temptress. On page 86, it talks about how Ursula unties Jose's wrists and ankles and then helps others to build him a shelter to protect him, which in my mind shows a great deal of compassion on her part (I have heard from some people though that by untying him and leaving him just tied at the waist is more painful, however I would disagree). Thus, I can take "evil temptress" off the list of archetypes which brings me to the other two which are "good mother" and "soul mate". While Ursula is a devoted mother and a good one at that, I would probably characterize her more as the "soul mate". Why you ask? She doesn't have a divine husband and thus isn't in a divine couple? While true, I think (being a feminist!) that she creates her own sense of fulfillment without her husband, knowing that he is on the road to madness. Ursula fits this archetype because she does have that spiritual connection and she knows what she wants. For example, when she ventures out to find her son without telling anyone, she does it out of her own will and her own sense of want. She knew she could not be happy without knowing where her son had gone and thus she knew to fulfill herself she needed to find him. This demonstrates both sense of self and determination, which is why I think she's a "soul mate" archetype. Feel free to disagree!