English 4430 critical responses, fall 2024

Remember from the syllabus that you are required to address five critical responses over the term, so you need not do every topic assigned.

Critical responses have a 200 word minimum (in the body of the response, excluding name, date, header, etc.): responses shorter than 200 words cannot pass. Avoid plot summary or straightforward retelling of "what happens" in the work—see nugget 1.

Format your response according to MLA guidelines for margins, spacing, name, date, etc., headers, etc. as outlined on my "simple stuff" page. Works cited pages are unnecessary for critical responses, although do still follow the MLA conventions for documenting quotations as explained on my quotations page.

1.7 Due Sunday, October 6th: In this unit's reading (Part 2, chapter 10, through Part 3, chapter 9), what are the most egregious or troublesome "ills of society" portrayed in the menagerie of notably flawed characters surrounding Prince Myshkin? That is, what typical attitudes or behaviors does Dostoevsky present as especially problematic? Focus on at least three different characters in at least three different chapters in this week's reading, supporting claims with a minimum of one quotation from each chapter.

1.1 Due Saturday, August 24th: Aside from the particular angles we are exploring in the threaded discussion, what else strikes you as significant, interesting, curious, or intriguing in our first installment of Crime and Punishment? Provide examples backed with quotations from at least three different chapters in Part One. Document quotations following Q1, Q2, and Q3 on the quotations page.

1.2 Due Saturday, August 31st: Address one, not both:
a) Find brief passages from two separate chapters in Part II of the novel and two in Part III that reveal significantly different aspects of Raskolnikov's feelings of guilt. Quote each passage and explain how they all offer different insights into Dostoevsky's understanding of fundamental human psychology.

b) Discuss Raskolnikov's first meeting with Porfiry Petrovich, in Part III, chapter 5. Avoiding plot summary, point out whatever strikes you as interesting or significant in this interview, including at least three quotations to illustrate your claims. You might, if you like, focus narrowly on Raskolnikov's published theory that interests Porfiry Petrovich so much.

1.3 Due Saturday, September 7th: Sonia and Svidrigaylov are often considered symbolic characters. What do you make of these two characters as we come to know them in Parts IV and V? Include at least one quotation from Part IV and at least one from Part V pertaining to each character.

1.4 Due Saturday, September 14th: In Dostoevsky's working notebooks (see excerpts in our Norton text, pp. 385-90), he wrote that the event of the murders "begins the corruption of his [Raskolnikov's] own psychology" (385) and also that "From this crime itself begins his moral development, the possibility of such questions as earlier were impossible. In the last chapter, in jail, he says that without the crime he would not have discovered in himself such questions, wishes, feeling, needs, striving, development" (387). Briefly, how does Dostoevsky show the "corruption" of the protagonist's psychology over the course of the novel? And in more depth, how does the novel also, particularly in Part VI and the two epilogues, endeavor to show significant, meaningful "moral development" set in motion by the murders? Include at least two quotes from Part VI and two or more from the epilogues.

1.5 Due Saturday, September 21st: Discuss Dostoevsky's portrayal of at least two female characters in the first ten chapters of The Idiot. You may write about whatever strikes you as interesting about the two or more characters you choose, taking care to avoid plot summary (nugget 1). If you're at all stuck, though, you might consider how the characters you address are significantly different from most or all of the women we met in Crime and Punishment. Include quotations from at least three different chapters in Part 1 of The Idiot in your response.

1.6 Due Saturday, September 28th: Discuss Nastasya Filippovna's attitude about money: Totsky has provided for her lavishly as a "kept woman" for about a decade, Ganya pursues Nastasya Filippovna explicitly for the 75,000 ruble dowry Totsky offers to get her "off his hands," and Rogozhin offers an outrageous 100,000 rubles to secure Nastasya Filippovna's hand in marriage. What do you make of Nastasya Filippovna's complicated view of money? Why does she throw Rogozhin's 100,000 rubles into the fire? Is she a grasping, manipulative "money grubber," or something else entirely? What does it say about the 19th-century Russian society that gives her the evident right to choose her own future here? Include at least four quotations from Part 2, chapters 1-9 in your discussion.