DUE DATE: Next week—Friday, 10/3 at the
beginning of section.
Purpose:
To see a novel as an act of representation is to see that decisions
have been made, whether consciously or not, to represent what a person is, what
the world is, what issues are important, etc., in a particular way. Studying literature demands a special
kind of attention to both what is being said in producing meaning as
well as the way it is being said.
In an English class, we are interested in not just the story itself but
also how the story is told. How the story is told affects the stakes
of the story – how it participates in specific cultural conversations and what
it says about cultural issues.
Context: During the time in which Charlotte Temple was written, many people
considered novel-reading to be an immoral, depraved, seductive activity. Reading before had a relationship to society
as a whole; it mainly consisted of people reading the Bible together as a
family or group. Now, novel-reading –
primarily done by women – became an individual experience. Instead of providing a way for a group to
share, discuss, and gain common values (as with the Bible), now novels could
provoke women’s imaginations in ways that were often considered anti-society;
novels could bring about emotions that could not be governed and controlled.
Like the villainous men that many of these novels portrayed, the novels
themselves seduced women. This issue of art
and seduction is significant Charlotte Temple.
Questions: How does the Charlotte Temple represent the
issue of art and seduction? How is
language (specific words, similes, metaphors, symbols, etc.) used to “seduce”
the reader into believing the importance of her story? How does the narrator
present/position herself in relation to these questions? How does she
acknowledge the problem of art and seduction (the fact that readers at her time
might have been skeptical of the novel’s morality)? We will examine these
questions through the preface of novel (pages 5-6).
Directions:
1.
Make sure you have read the above carefully. Read the
preface to Charlotte Temple several times. Circle any words you don’t
understand and look them up.
2.
While reading, underline and make marginal notes about any
specific words or phrases that catch your eye and relate to the questions
above. Why did the author choose these
words or phrases instead of the others?
What affect do the words she chose have on this passage’s significance
to the questions above?
3.
On a typed page, list (in quotation marks) eight different
phrases (no complete sentences) from the preface, its paragraph number (in
parentheses), and then next to each word/phrase, explain (in 1-2 sentences) why
it is significant to the questions above.
Example:
1.
“perusal of the young and thoughtless” (paragraph 1): The
narrator acknowledges that her readers are easily seduced; they are “young,” so
they do not have the maturity and experience to make decisions, and they are
“thoughtless,” meaning that they do not think carefully and therefore need
someone else to think for them.
ALSO as homework: Make sure to read the Section Policy Sheet!