An Overwhelming Question

1) Questions:

· What is the American dream, as portrayed in American literature and in history?

· How has the American dream changed over the years (early 1900’s -21^st century)?

· How does Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby portray the disillusionment of the American dream?

· How does American Literature portray the American dream?

· How does Daisy personify the materialistic, superficiality of pursuit of the American dream?

2) After taking a summer course on “The American dream” I developed an interest in the portrayal of it in American literature. I’ve always thought to myself that the American dream was a bit too idealistic and silly in a way, and discovered that many American novels portrayed the failure of its pursuit. I always thought of the American dream as disillusionment, but nevertheless an inevitable pursuit by both citizens and immigrants of America. I studied The Great Gatsby along with a few other American novels in my summer course and was especially drawn to the American experience, culture, and pursuit of happiness as in Fitzgerald’s novel. Also, my experience as a 1.5 Korean American living in New York City, I personally have experienced that desire to pursue the American dream, and realized the “fluff” of many aspects of it. I’d like to study the connection between the novel and the time period in which in birthed, the Jazz Age (the roaring twenties), and how it has changed or not changed in the 21^st century.

3) I’m not sure where my questions will lead. The only clue that I have at this point is I think my research will lead me to a different question; a question of identity. What is the connection between the American dream and the identity of Americans, immigrants, the people living in America? Does the American dream only work of white America? Or does it work the same for minorities? With the population of America continually changing, I feel that the dream too has changed and needs to change. What has changed, hasn’t changed, and needs to change? Why has it changed? How has it changed for?

It seems that at this point, my questions are leading to more questions. How can I narrow this down to something more “workable”?

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Question:

What are the differences in how the Meskwaki and South Western Apache people view transformation of humans into animal form?

In researching mythology involved in Native American literature I came across various stories that personified animals and at times, made humans to be trivial beings with little power. Yet, when these humans were transformed by a higher being or transformed themselves into animals they became almost godly. The power they held was immense and either fortified their presence among their people or caused destruction. The stories that speak of such transformation derive from different directions within the United States. The two regions I will focus on through the analysis of one transformation story from each are South and East.

This particular question will lead to an analysis of the significance behind the specific transformation of human to animal as opposed to animal into human which is also found in Native American folklore. This question demands a close reading of the stories “He Became an Eagle,” translated by Genevieve Ethelbah and “When the Cannibal Giant Was Killed by Wisahkeha,” written by Alfred Kiyana. I hope to reveal the various elements involved in the transformation from human to animal and what it signifies within the text.

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Assignment #4: The Big Question

A t this point my research question is: Are Christopher Marlowe’s unorthodox religious opinions reflected in his literary works, and if so, how radical were they? I have decided to use Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta and Doctor Faustus, his major plays, as the main works to study for my project.

As an undergraduate I, like many others, studied Doctor Faustus. I found both the play and the myths surrounding the author himself very intriguing, so it was tempting to do a major project about him in order to indulge my interest and learn more. What set me off in the direction of religion in his plays was a sentence in the foreword to Marlowe’s plays in Elizabethan Drama: Eight Plays:

The fact that only his death in a tavern in the village of Deptford near London saved Marlowe from interrogation by the Star Chamber confirms the impression many passages in his plays would have created – that he was at least strongly drawn to unorthodox opinions (Gassner and Green, p. 232).

I started reflecting on this statement, and when I started looking at some works of criticism I discovered that this is indeed a contested point of view.

Knowing my topic, I started reading The Craft of Research, where chapter 3.4.2 on how to formulate a research question helped me focus my topic. I used their formula on pages 49-51 was able to formulate a question and its motivation:

1. Topic: I am studying use and depiction of religion in three of the plays by Christopher Marlowe.

2. Question: Because I want to find out if they contain, in the context of Elizabethan England, religious unorthodoxies that contributed to Marlowe’s reputation as a heretic or if his reputation was solely based on his alleged behavior and comments on religion.

3. Significance: I order to help my reader understand the true relationship between myths and facts, biography and writings in the amount of criticism and reactions to Marlowe and his plays.

Other questions that I think will be useful to keep in mind are: In the plays, what is the plot structure, the themes, the characters and how do they interrelate; how do the plays compare to other plays in the same period; what were the contemporary reactions to the plays; how do the plays relate to contemporary religious controversies; what could have been Marlowe’s intentions in writing them? Who’s praised and who’s condemned?

At the moment it seems difficult to predict what my results are going to be, but my working hypothesis is that all three plays, regardless of the authors biography, contain enough controversial material on religion for Marlowe to be considered a skeptic or a heretic; however, they are not atheist, although he was accused of being just that, in the modern sense of the word. Furthermore, I want to avoid getting excessively tangled up in the heap of more or less established facts about Marlowe himself, and try to concentrate on the texts themselves as much as possible.

References:

Gassner, John and Green, William, ed. Elizabethan Drama: Eight Plays, New York: Grove Press, c1990.

Booth, Colomb and Williams. The Craft of Research, Chicago: Chicago UP, 2003.

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Questions

1. What exactly causes Satan to rebel against God within John Milton’s Paradise Lost?

2. How does this rebellion subsequently lead to the corruption of mankind?

3. How is this corruption of mankind a means of retribution?

4. Why does Adam’s failure to abide by God’s established hierarchical order of existence more so than free will bring about the Fall of man and subsequent inevitable redemption of mankind?

5. How have Milton’s unquestionably Christian ideas affected other literary figures?

6. In what ways do Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell play off of Milton’s ideas within Paradise Lost?

7. How does Mary Shelley go about expressing Milton’s ideas as he undoubtedly intended them to be understood?

8. How does Blake go about obfuscating Milton’s intentions?

How did I arrive at these questions?

I came into the MA of English/literature program knowing I wanted to write my thesis on some aspect of Paradise Lost. It took me quite a bit of time to figure out what exactly I wanted to write about specifically, though. While I was trying to figure it out I read through numerous scholarly articles. I have always been interested in Satan’s role in Paradise Lost as well as Adam and Eve’s defiance against God, but I was unsure how to work this in as a topic. Finally, one night the idea of writing about the cause of Satan’s rebellion against God, specifically how the conception of the Son of God prompts this, as well as the idea that free will is not so much a part in the Fall of man as I had once thought just hit me “like a ton of bricks.” I, thus, continued on with my quest for knowledge. I continued searching for sources that would help support my thesis. In the year or so that I have been focusing on this project I have searched through J-Stor, Academic Search Premier, Literature Research Center/MLA, and, of course, numerous print journals, encyclopedias, and internet sources. I have compiled an astronomical number of scholarly articles that deal with my topic. I have recently decided to expand my topic to include Milton’s influence on Mary Shelley and William Blake. Presently, Dr. Marotta is helping me complete my thesis paper.

Where Have These Questions Lead Me?

The rough draft of the introductory paragraph of my thesis goes as follows:

Paradise Lost by John Milton goes into great detail about Satan’s rebellion against God and his ensuing fall from Heaven. Satan’s persuasive nature prompts a great number of angels to join him in his revolt against Heaven and they all, thus, join him in his fall from grace. Satan, as the leader of the fallen angel, convinces his legion that they are not defeated. After much consideration he sets out in search of God’s “new creation.” Once he comes upon them, the fall in inevitable in spite of Adam and Eve’s free-will since Satan’s power of persuasion is too intense. Within Paradise Lost it is also asserted that God creates Adam above all other creatures except God, Himself. Upon Adam’s request God then creates Eve. Eve is formed inferior to Adam. As Adam is supposed to look to God as his guide, Eve is supposed to look to God by means of looking to Adam. God places Adam and Eve in Eden where they are “free to act according to their nature, his in ruling justly and hers in yielding creatively” (McColley 111). Through this work Milton clearly is trying to express his Christian beliefs. Numerous authors have used Milton’s ideas and incorporated them into their own works. Two texts, in particular, which play off of Paradise Lost are Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake. While Shelley expresses Milton’s ideas as he undoubtedly intended them to be understood, Blake obfuscates Milton’s intentions. I see it fit to illustrate, in detail, the manner in which these two authors employed Milton’s ideas. I, of course, will first discuss the reasons behind Satan’s decision to rebel against God and the manner in which he went about corrupting mankind. I will also discern that Adam’s failure to abide by God’s established hierarchical order of existence more so than free will brought about the Fall of man and subsequent inevitable redemption of mankind.

Accordingly, the rest of my paper discusses all of the issues I mention in my introductory paragraph. I am about 35 pages into my paper, but I feel that the hardest part is still left for me to do. I still need to expand on the questions which I want answered. By the completion of my thesis think I will know a great deal more about Paradise Lost, Milton’s views on Christianity, and Milton’s influence on Shelley and Blake than I do right now.