Mid-Term Topics

Note the revised due date for the mid-term, in response to possible difficulties with the assignment posting. Each of these topics assumes that additional credible research at the SFU Library will be conducted in forming the essay.

1. James Clavell is a quote popular novelist unquote: that is, his novels are bestsellers (Shogun, for instance, had over six million copies in print) and are purchased at airport bookstalls and read by people from all walks of life. In light of material presented in lecture on Clavell's biography and of the civilisation relationship between Japan and the West, make a cogent and compelling critical argument for the artistic merit of King Rat.
2. Written by a Westerner who had no direct experience of Japan, Madame Butterfly is nonetheless an exquisite and intensively consistent representation of Japanese literary and æsthetic concepts. Using one major Japanese aesthetic and at least two minor Japanese æsthetic concepts (jo-ha-kyu, shichi-go-san, shin-gyo-so, ten-chi-jin) and within the framework of the female erotic sensibility evoked by the genji monogatari, reveal the artistic unity of Luther Long's text, with especial concentration on the interrelationship of the æsthetic concepts selected.
3. Assume that your audience sincerely needs to learn to understand and experience mono no aware. Use Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day as your exemplary case to give your audience what they so intensely require.