For Revision

Since some of you are struggling to create literary arguments, I've given you some open-ended questions to consider. The answers to these questions will be your thesis statement. For the second and final assignment, you will have to create and answer your own open-ended question.


For the revision, I'd like to modify the original questions I'd assigned to guide you into creating a more complex thesis statement/argument.

If you chose topic 3, think about the following:
Why is the character of Lila necessary in a female Kunstleroman, a novel that traces the becoming of a woman writer? What does Lila signify in the context of the novel?

OR

Can the friendship between Elena and Lila be considered enabling, disabling, or both? What is unusual about Ferrante's representation of rivalry and competition between two women?

If you choose this, you will need to access 2 articles and interviews which address Ferrante's views on female friendships.



If you chose topic 1 (class consciousness), I'd like you to think about the following:

How is My Brilliant Friend a traditional rags-to-riches story…. and how is it not? How does Ferrante play with her audience's expectations of this genre through fairytale motifs? (You want to consider that, for girls and women, success in fairytales usually arrived through the marriage-with-wealthy-man plot).

OR

Ferrante's audience consists mainly of upper middle-class Americans and Europeans who have fetishized her fiction. Yet her novels challenge classist assumptions, subverting hierarchies between "high" and "low" culture in a postmodern fashion. Discuss, paying attention to issues of form and style as well as content.