English response

Instructions

English 251                                                                             Dr. Neela Bhattacharya Saxena

Final essay                                                                                                                 

This is your final work in class, and I would like to see how well you have understood the themes that we have explored. Please choose any ONE of the following questions and write an essay (4-5 double-spaced typed pages). Although this is not a research paper, you will need to cite some external critical sources including videos to support your point.  You can cite my notes also. I have provided some links for you to explore. Use MLA citation style for the quotes and provide a Works Cited page. You must mention the number of the prompt you are attempting; stay focused on it and respond to the question instead of writing a general paper about the text that will not be accepted. Check for grammar and organization, and give direct quotes from the texts and the films. If you have any questions, ask in the forum.

Towards the end of the novel, Siddhartha says to Govinda, “Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. We can find it, we can live it, we can be carried by it, we can work wonders with it, but we cannot utter it or teach it” (124). What is this wisdom that Siddhartha discovers? Watch the video about Hesse and write an essay about the journey of the character and the author into wisdom in the novel.

In the chapter on “Awakening,” Siddhartha recognizes that he was afraid of himself and begins a new journey. Thinking about his declaration, “I can fast, I can think, I can wait,” explain how these skills help him navigate the labyrinth of samsara until he meets Vasudeva who teaches him to listen to the voice of the river that delivers him from himself. Also, watch the video Who Am I and create a connection between this ancient tale and young people’s lives today.

Speaking of her beloved, Tish the narrator says, “He lived, now, in time, with the roar and stink and the beauty and horror of innumerable men: and he had been dropped into this inferno in the twinkling of an eye. Time could not be bought. The only coin time accepted was life” (95). Paying close attention to the book If Beale Street Could Speak which ends in Zion (a moment of delivery from Time), write an essay about the portrayal of Time in the novel.

Watch the videos and Baldwin and the Harlem Renaissance. Focusing on the history of the Harlem Renaissance that gives creative expression to the experience of African Americans, write an essay about James Baldwin and show how If Beale Street Could Speak presents a moment of profound love in its assertion of ordinary Black identity despite a ruthlessly racist environment.

1. In this course, we have explored a few women characters who entered the traditional male quest for identity within the modern world as they were disenchanted by patriarchal control of their lives and then we met Louise and Tish who accept their instinctual motherhood against all odds. Even Kamala, the wealthy courtesan, longs for love and motherhood. Pick a few of these women characters to write an essay exploring the journey from modernity to post-modernity in this course.