Memory Police Essay
Budget: $10 – $30 USD
Choose one and cover it well in 3–4 pages:
1.) Discuss the fiction within fiction in this novel. How does the narrator's writing reflect, contrast, or fit with the rest of the narrative? Be sure to pay some attention not only to plot, character, and symbol, but to stylistic elements as well.
2.) For those who'd like the challenge of an extended analysis with tighter focus, choose a single small element from the novel—e.g., music box, dog, ferryboat, creek behind her place, etc.—and analyze its role in the novel. This requires not just close reading of the places where that element is mentioned, but big-picture thinking about the book and its major themes that you can apply to your chosen element.
3.) The twin (opposing?) motifs of nature and machinery run through the book, in ways both obvious (flowers, typewriters, etc.) and more subtle (the smell of gear oil, the chill of eternal winter). Discuss these two motifs—is there tension between them, or are they complementary? Do they represent a larger theme or idea in the book? Does the fact that the book is set on an island factor into this? Would you describe the people as more natural, or machine-like? How about the system of government?
1.) Discuss the fiction within fiction in this novel. How does the narrator's writing reflect, contrast, or fit with the rest of the narrative? Be sure to pay some attention not only to plot, character, and symbol, but to stylistic elements as well.
2.) For those who'd like the challenge of an extended analysis with tighter focus, choose a single small element from the novel—e.g., music box, dog, ferryboat, creek behind her place, etc.—and analyze its role in the novel. This requires not just close reading of the places where that element is mentioned, but big-picture thinking about the book and its major themes that you can apply to your chosen element.
3.) The twin (opposing?) motifs of nature and machinery run through the book, in ways both obvious (flowers, typewriters, etc.) and more subtle (the smell of gear oil, the chill of eternal winter). Discuss these two motifs—is there tension between them, or are they complementary? Do they represent a larger theme or idea in the book? Does the fact that the book is set on an island factor into this? Would you describe the people as more natural, or machine-like? How about the system of government?