RESEARCH PAPER #2 - DUE Saturday, April 25

As we read, New Jersey native Stephen Crane's 1898 novella, "The Monster," (first published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine) relates the story of a black servant, Henry Johnson, who rescues the son of his employer, a white doctor, from a terrible fire. Henry is disfigured in the process and is, at first, regarded as a hero by the community. However, due to his disfigurement--he is literally without a face-- his persistent presence in the community is viewed as a disruptive element and he becomes a pariah. 

There are several ways of reading this story: 1) as a racial allegory and/or as a Christian allegory; 2) as an example of the "white man's burden"; 3) as a metaphor for modernity, and so on. The story is quintessentially Crane in its stylistic elements, and he also engages in illustrating some of the racial stereotypes characteristically used by white writers of the turn of the century.

I have posted a link to Adam Smith's "The Impartial Spectator" (from 1759's The Theory of Moral Sentiments) for you to consider alongside "The Monster" as you consider the story for your final papers. Dr. Trescott's insistence on caring for him despite the social ostracism from the white community asks the reader to consider the idea of "sympathy" and whether there are natural limitations on how one may proceed conscientiously and ethically in one's life. Indeed, as we discussed, the concluding scene in the novella offers no easy closure, as it is open-ended, suggesting that the answers to ethical questions such are arrived at with great difficulty and, at times, remain uncertain.


I have posted another link to the novella as well as to the Adam Smith text below for easy searching. 

The Monster, Stephen Crane

"The Impartial Spectator," Adam Smith, from Theory of Moral Sentiments

RESEARCH PAPER #2

For research paper #2 (a combined research/reflection paper), here is the revised due date: Saturday, 4/25
 
Again, this paper can be written as a comparison/contrast with Frankenstein, as a reflection on the status of the "outsider," or as a response to one or more of the articles we read in class. You are free to analyze it using whatever critical approach (Marxist, critical race theory, post-colonial, feminist, psychoanalytic, etc.) you want to. The only guidelines, really, are that you incorporate at least two critical essays in your paper, and that you discuss "The Monster" and one or more of the other pieces we have analyzed in class. 

We will start our discussion of Nella Larsen's Passing on Tuesday, 4/14, and you will begin working on ideas for your final group presentation on Passing. I will send you a couple of past PowerPoint presentations so that you may see what other students have done.

P.S. Here is a blog entry from 2010 with another perspective on "The Monster" and its cultural context: Era of Casual Fridays