Paper # 3
Short, New Critical Analysis of Some Formal Element of Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
10%   Due Monday Mar 8

Length-- 3-5 pp (750-1250 words)
No outside sources other than Meyer
Topic -- Analysis of some formal aspect of Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway, using the vocabulary and concepts for reading fiction outlined in Meyer.  (See glossary, Day 11)

SOME POSSIBLE TOPICS:

• Analyze the basic PLOT structure of Mrs. Dalloway: how does Woolf use flashback, exposition, and foreshadowing?
• This is an experimental novel that aimed to get rid of many conventional PLOT elements.  Do you still find any trace of the fundamental rhythm of plot: rising action, conflict, complication, resolution ?
• What connects the various parts of the novel?  How does Woolf make  transistions from one character's mind to another's?  Track her  linking devices throughout the novel.
  
• How is CHARACTER developed in Mrs. Dalloway?  Woolf meant to be experimental here-- to tell us less about the outside of characters and show us more about their interior, subjective experience.  Does she succeed? A re her characters flat or round?
• Who is the HERO in this novel?  Is there more than one? Who are the antagonists? 
  
• Woolf said that Septimus was intended to be a double of CLarissa.  How are the two alike and how are they different?
  
• Is Mrs. Dalloway a hero or an anti-hero?  Does the novelseem to want tomake us like her, or is she undercut?
  
• Can you discuss the characters in this novel using Frye's schema of alazons, eirons, buffoons, and agroikos?  You must begin with deciding if this is a comedy or a tragedy.
• How does Woolf handle POINT OF VIEW?  Does she use an omniscient narrator, editorial omniscience vs. neutral omniscience,
  
limited omniscient narrator etc.
• SYMBOLS -- Pick a symbol or motif or repeated image in Mrs. Dalloway and track its appearance and significnace throughout the novel.  What are its possible meanings.  Is it a conventional or literary symbol?
• clocks--connects up to theme of time
• knives (especially Peter-- but are their other knives or sharp things)
• water imagery
• tree imagery
• moments of being
• flowers (especailly roses)
  
• IRONY -- Is Mrs. Dalloway an ironic novel?  Where do you find irony, and what kinds of irony do you see?
  
• THEME 
  
• regret -- vision of the past. 
  
• relationships -- how to make them work
• critique of British society
• class consciousness (way lower classes are treatmed; privilege of upper classes)
•  monarchy, authority, hierarchy
• colonialism
• war/ patriarchy
• Dr.s...medical authority 
  
• Forcing the soul -- urge to dominate
• Selfhood : what unites people vs. what separates people
  
• gender roles
  

Required Elements:
    * A title
    * A thesis
    * An intro paragraph
    * Paragraphs with examples
    * At least three quotations from the primary work, correctly formatted and punctuated
    *A sense of an ending (not necessarily a concluding paragraph)

What I am looking for in an "A" paper
 STRUCTURAL

• Paper is strongly unified -- if it is about two or more different topics, a connection is clearly made linking all of them so that the paper is more than just a list of unrelated observations.  (In an analysis, be sure not to try to analyze too many disparate things.)
• Paper is logically organized with paragraphs of the paper following the chronology of the novel
• Paper has an intro paragraph with a strong thesis and some kind of a map of the whole paper
• Paragraphs are well unified: have strong topic sentences and don't drift from one topic to another.
• There are thoughtful transitions between paragraphs
• 
  

• Quotations are correctly introduced, punctuated, and contextualized, including correct use of ellipses and brackets.
• Semi-colons are used correctly
• no major grammar errors (FRAG, CS, GCMSP)
• Commas are mostly correct

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