CommeDesEnfants Posted January 19, 2009 Report Share Posted January 19, 2009 The work we've been studying recently is a collection of short stories by Katherine Mansfield. Haven't heard of her? Not surprised. I've chosen the topic of discussing how Mansfield often uses an extremely minor character foil that's left both nameless and undeveloped in order to crush the fantasies of the protagonists on three of her short stories, and how ironic it is that such a minor character can ruin the dreams and false perceptions of these major, well-characterized characters. This topic took a lot of effort to get to, and I've now started preparing for it. Unfortunately, the only thing I could think of at the present moment is [i]what I'm actually supposed to be doing with this topic[/i]. Am I supposed to be comparing them or something? My English teacher told me to emphasize on [b]how[/b] the author manages to use these minor characters, and deviate away from the [b]why [/b]as a result. It's just too bad that the why is all I can really think of. Should I describe these minor characters in detail? Well, if I were to do that, then my oral would probably last around 5 minutes - 7, if I'm lucky; I'm known to use slightly dramatic wording and overly flowery language to increase my word count. Should I talk more about how ironic it is? Well, that'd start drifting to the "why" again... It feels like what I could be doing should be so obvious and within reach, but there's some sort of mental barrier between me and the things I can fully talk about. We did a practice IOP that lasted 5 minutes where we were assigned topics. I worked hard on it and thought I did a pretty good job, but I ended up with a 17/30, one of the lowest marks. It was on the character of Ezinma from Achebe's Things Fall Apart, and how she's such an important factor to the story - her significance, basically. Unfortunately, I never realized I was talking more about the protagonist, Okonkwo, than the actual character I was talking about, which my English teacher didn't exactly like. However, my entire thesis was based on how she was such an essential element toward sthe characterization of Okonkwo. I'm guessing that it either my English teacher perceived my intentions incorrectly... or I just did a crappy job overall. So basically... any help on the matter would be much appreciated. Oh, and it's due next Tuesday. Smile. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chesire_Cat Posted January 19, 2009 Report Share Posted January 19, 2009 Well, our English teacher told us to relate the author's experiences with the characters in the book, and the reason she creates them. (I've never read the book you did though). And then he said to relate the characters to the book to the overall theme of the book and how they relate to it. This should buy you another 2 minutes? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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