The Shining: Rom-com Rearranged

This video takes clips from Kubrik's The Shining and rearranges things to turn this tale of horror into a romantic, family friendly story of reconnection amid the beautiful Colorado mountains...

Recent Stephen King Interview

Stephen King appeared on this past weekend's CBS Sunday Morning show to discuss Under the Dome, a new television series based on one of his novels, and a sequel to The Shining to be published this fall, Doctor Sleep:

Stephen King's Sunday Morning Interview

Extended Literary Analysis

Final Essay: Extended Literary Analysis

Due: Monday, May 12, by 5 p.m.

For your final essay, which takes the place of a final exam for this class, you will develop a 6-8 page analytical paper that advances either a focused interpretation of one text (short story or novel), or a comparative analysis of two texts. Any of the texts read this semester can be used for the final essay. You are also welcome and encouraged to use work from one of your short essays to revise and further develop into this longer essay.

Literary Analysis:

This essay will, similar to the short essays, focus specifically on a critical issue, will be organized around your topic, and will include an introduction that clearly sets up your intention for the paper. Create a literary argument that provides a framework for interpreting the text. In this argument, you are advocating a specific and non-obvious “reading of the text”- an argument about how the story can be read and understood. You will select one to two literary elements and discuss their significance for a larger theme or issue within the text.  Your discussion of the literary elements will not be an end unto itself, but will ultimately prove their significance to the critical issue you identify. Your essay should also incorporate textual evidence and a discussion of this evidence, including integrated direct quotations to support your claims (in MLA format).

Literary Comparison Option:

What is a Literary Comparison? A comparison presents two or more texts and describes and analyzes their similarities and differences in order to illuminate something new about each text. When writing your literary comparison, you will answer the question, so what? Make clear to your reader the purpose of your comparative reading: It is not simply enough to describe the similarities and differences between to works; you must also provide the significance of your comparison. Your goal is to inform readers of something they haven't thought of before-- a non-obvious connection between two texts that helps the reader see each in a new way. Highlighting the differences is not enough; ask yourself what the deeper implications of those relationships are for the topic at stake. The elements being compared must either: A) Appear different but have significant similarities; or B) Appear similar but have significant differences.

Method: Establish a basis for your comparison. In a comparison of two literary works, some common grounds for comparison include plot, character background, character actions, character motivations, setting, and theme. Develop your discussion of the element you choose as your basis for comparison by describing and interpreting the attributes of a common element. 

Organization: Although there are two main ways comparative essays can be structured-- the block method (presenting each work separately) and the alternating method-- for the purposes of this course, you will use the alternating method. In the alternating method, also called point by point, you will structure your argument around the attributes of comparison for each text rather than dealing with one text at a time. This will make it easier for your reader to grasp your specific points of comparison between the two texts.

Thesis Statement: In your thesis statement, include the names of the texts being compared, indicate the purpose of the comparison, and state the basis of the comparison. 

Examples: 

Unacceptable thesis: I am going to compare the similarities and differences between Bram Stoker's Dracula and Angela Carter's "The Lady of the House of Love." 

Acceptable thesis: The seduction of male victims by female vampires depicted in both Bram Stoker's Dracula and Angela Carter's "The Lady of the House of Love" demonstrate each author's approach to cultural fears about feminine sexuality.

Additional Guidelines:

• If you choose to extend work from one of your short essays, you are not simply adding additional material to what you have already written, but should be revising all aspects of your essay to make it into a coherent longer essay. This may mean restructuring, reevaluating claims and evidence, and possibly even revision to your initial thesis. This option allows you to refine an idea you have already worked on, applying the process of revision to strengthen and supplement your original argument.
• As always, revise your essay for clarity and style. Edit your paper for spelling, grammatical, and mechanical errors. Make sure all citations and quotations are formatted correctly, including punctuation. 
• Use MLA for your paper formatting, citations throughout, and your works cited page. 

Prominent Allusions in The Shinning

King threads allusions to other Gothic texts throughout The Shining; the following classic fairytale by Perrault and short story by Poe are two such texts that make numerous appearances throughout the novel:

"Blue Beard"- a fairytale written by French author, Charles Perrault (1697) tells the story of a young bride who has married the older and wealthier Blue Beard.  In order to determine his wife's fidelity, Blue Beard leaves her with the keys to every room in the castle, forbidding her only from entering one. He leaves his wife alone in the castle for long periods of time, sometimes weeks on end, to test the full measure of her restraint against curiosity. However, eventually the mysterious secret behind the room gets the better of her strict obedience and she enters the chamber. What she finds horrifies and threatens her destruction... 

"The Masque of the Red Death," by Edgar Allan Poe (1842), begins with the intelligence of a horrible plague sweeping the region of the tale, threatening the nearly instant bloody dissolution of its victims. However, the Prince of the region, believing himself to be immune to the common pestilence, aptly named the Red Death, decides to hold a masked ball, seemingly in defiance of the plague and its reach into his halls. The gathering proceeds with every extravagance available to Prince Prospero's generous coffers, and all seems well until, as the large ebony clock of the hall ticks towards midnight, a strange and unidentified guest joins the party, whose costume resembles with clinical accuracy the image of a corpse...

"And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripod expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."

Stephen King's Background

Below is a quote from Stephen King's 2003 speech when he was awarded a medal for his distinguished contributions to American Letters by the National Book Foundation:

"Far too long the so-called popular writers of this country and the so-called literary writers have stared at each other with animosity and a willful lack of understanding. This is the way it has always been... But giving an award like this to a guy like me suggests that in the future things don't have to be the way they've always been. Bridges can be built between the so-called popular fiction and the so-called literary fiction." 

Early Career Timeline:

1966: Graduates from Lisbon High School and enters the University of Maine, at Orono (UMO)
1967: Makes his first short story sale, receiving $35 for "The Glass Floor" from Startling Mystery Stories.
1969: Begins writing a weekly column, King's Garbage Truck, for the Maine Campus, UMO's student newspaper. Meets and falls in love with Tabitha Jane Spruce.
1970: Graduates from UMO and takes a job pumping gas; later gets a job pressing sheets at a laundry in Bangor.
1971: Marries Tabitha Spruce; daughter Naomi is born; King takes a teaching job at Hampden Academy where he did his student teaching.
1972: First son, Joe, is born
1973: His first novel, Carrie, is published. He initially received $2,500 for the book, but is paid $400,00 0 for the paperback rights. Quits teaching.
1974: Carrie appears in bookstores; King moves to Boulder, CO.
1975: Publishes Salem's Lot
1977: King publishes The Shining, and under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, Rage.

Body Paragraph Example

The following is a very successful body paragraph written by one of your fellow students. After the body paragraph is a chart breaking down the components of the paragraph. Notice as well that the quotes are integrated in with analytical and interpretive statements of how this text contributes to the overall point of the paragraph. This paragraph begins with a strong topic sentence and stays focused on proving the point identified:

     The paradoxical concepts of freedom and oppression displayed in the short story create a subtle juxtaposition between Clytie and Hermes through Hermes’ agricultural and messenger roles in the Greek legend. Hermes acts as Zeus’s swift-footed messenger, as such, he is the only God who has the power to transverse between the different worlds. He is also known as the God of Animal Husbandry; Hermes protects and/or herds cattle and other farm like animals. Welty uses Hermes’s connection to these land-locked animals as a reflection of Clytie’s same predicament on a conceptual level. Since Clytie has lost her prized possession, her identity, she has slowly drawn herself away from the community and has become more animalistic in her behaviors. The author explains with vivid imagery that she becomes so absent minded in her search for what she has lost that she would often stand in the middle of the street in the pouring rain “with the patience of almost a beast […] as if she were waiting for something,” until someone called her name (Welty 425). However, even after some would speak, she “didn’t look around, but clenched her hands and drew them up under her armpits, and sticking out her elbows like hen wings, she ran out of the street, “her poor hat creaking and beating about her ears” (Welty 425). This comparison is amplified with diction that has animalistic connotations of how she “savagely” and “rapidly” eats her food (Welty 430). Clytie adopts many of these animalistic characteristics, because her own identity is unknown to her.

Topic Sentence:	The paradoxical concepts of freedom and oppression displayed in the short story create a subtle juxtaposition between Clytie and Hermes through Hermes’ agricultural and messenger roles in the Greek legend.
Relevant allusion background:	Hermes acts as Zeus’s swift-footed messenger, as such, he is the only God who has the power to transverse between the different worlds. He is also known as the God of Animal Husbandry; Hermes protects and/or herds cattle and other farm like animals.
Explanation of Welty’s use of the allusion:	Welty uses Hermes’s connection to these land-locked animals as a reflection of Clytie’s same predicament on a conceptual level. Since Clytie has lost her prized possession, her identity, she has slowly drawn herself away from the community and has become more animalistic in her behaviors.
Textual evidence and Analysis supporting previous point:	The author explains with vivid imagery that she becomes so absent minded in her search for what she has lost that she would often stand in the middle of the street in the pouring rain “with the patience of almost a beast […] as if she were waiting for something,” until someone called her name (Welty 425). However, even after some would speak, she “didn’t look around, but clenched her hands and drew them up under her armpits, and sticking out her elbows like hen wings, she ran out of the street, “her poor hat creaking and beating about her ears” (Welty 425). This comparison is amplified with diction that has animalistic connotations of how she “savagely” and “rapidly” eats her food (Welty 430).
Restatement of main idea:	Clytie adopts many of these animalistic characteristics, because her own identity is unknown to her.

Transitions

Transitions provide a way to communicate connections or assumptions to your reader. Do you want your reader to compare ideas? Are you trying to highlight a certain example from the text? Are you prompting readers to draw conclusions from a previous thought? Transitions help you to more logically connect the ideas in your argument. The following table describes transitional devices and their connected categories:

To Add:	and, again, and then, besides, equally important, finally, further, furthermore, in addition
To Compare:	whereas, but, yet, on the other hand, however, nevertheless, on the contrary, by comparison, compared to, but, although, conversely, in contrast
To Prove:	because, since, for the same reason, evidently, furthermore, indeed, in fact, in addition
To Show Exception:	yet, still however, nevertheless, in spite of, despite, of course, sometimes
To Show Time:	immediately, thereafter, soon, finally, then, later, previously, formerly, next, and then
To Repeat:	in brief, as I have said/argued, as has been noted,
To Emphasize:	definitely, extremely, indeed, in any case, absolutely, positively, always, unquestionably, certainly
To Show Sequence:	first, second, third, etc. next, then following this, at this point, after, subsequently, consequently, previously, concurrently
To Give an Example:	for example, for instance, in this case, in this situation, to demonstrate, to illustrate, as an illustration