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Your extra credit explication of this passage below is due as a POSTING on the ECAMPUS DISCUSSION BOARD by THIS WEDNESDAY, 10/15 at 9:00 PM (Instructions on how to post can be found here). This will give me time to look at your explications before class on Friday and time for you to look at each others'. I STRONGLY suggest that you read your classmates' responses before section on Friday; seeing what others notice will help you sharpen your observation skills.

In order to practice developing your ability to write strong explications under timed conditions, please TIME yourself when you write your explication and also let me know how much time you spent on it. I suggest between 15-25 minutes.

PASSAGE: "Some months after, dragged to the gibbet at the tail of a mule, the black met his voiceless end. The body was burned to ashes; but for many days, the head, that hive of subtlety, fixed on a pole in the plaza, met, unabashed, the gazes of the whites, and across the Plaza looked towards St. Bartholomew's church, in whose vaults slept then, as now, the recovered bones of Aranda, and across the Rimac bridge looked towards the monastery, on Mount Agonia without; where, there, months after being dismissed by the court, Benito Cereno, borne on the bier, did, indeed, follow his leader."

REMEMBER, for an explication you need to:

* Identify the novel’s title, author, context of the passage (where it occurs in the work, and any important incidents associated with it) and the cultural issue that you will examine.

* Explicate an idea in the passage by way of a close reading of the passage’s language, structure, and/or context. Develop a focused argument about how the passage’s language, style, structure, and placement in the novel affect your interpretation of this idea and its significance in the work as a whole.

* You do NOT have to discuss everything in the passage. Focus on one or two aspects of the passage’s style that support your argument about the effects of HOW an author represents an idea.

Email me if you have questions.

Melanie
10/10/03