Ken Kesey “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”

How do we know Bromden is schizophrenic in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

How does One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest position the reader to reconsider what is sane?

What does Nurse Ratched and the Ward Symbolize?

What was the Combine and what did it mean to Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

What is the turning point in Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

Find Biblical allusions and symbolism. How does McMurphy become a Christ figure?

Why is Bromden the narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest instead of McMurphy? Who is the real protagonist of the novel? How does the use of Bromden as the narrator tie into the biblical allusions in the novel?

Vladimir Nabokov “Lolita”

Lolita begins with an earnest foreword. Why might Nabokov have chosen to frame his novel in this fashion? What is the effect of knowing that the narrative's three main characters are already dead—and, in a sense, nonexistent, since their names have been changed?

Humbert's confession is written in an extraordinary language. It is by turns colloquial and archaic, erudite and stilted, florid and sardonic. Is Humbert's language appropriate to his circumstances and motives? In what way does it obfuscate as much as it reveals?

Humbert attributes his pedophilia (or "nympholepsy") to his tragically aborted childhood romance with Annabel Leigh. How far can we trust this explanation? How do we reconcile Humbert's reliance on the Freudian theory of psychic trauma with his corrosive disdain for psychiatrists?

To what extent is the America of Lolita an exile's America?

Is Humbert's madness an aspect of his sexual deviance or is it something more fundamental? Can we trust a story told by an insane narrator? What is Humbert's kinship with the "mad" narrators of such works as Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground and Gogol's Diary of a Madman?

Can Humbert ever be said to "love" Lolita? Does he ever perceive her as a separate being? Is the reader ever permitted to see her in ways that Humbert cannot?

The last lines of Lolita are: "I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita". What is the meaning of this passage? In what ways is Lolita at once a meditation on, and a re-creation of, the artistic process?

Sources

Орлова. Образ автора

Р.Барт. Смерть автора

М.Фуко. Что такое автор?

http://www.studygs.net/fictiona.htm - very simple explanation of narrative techniques + interactive game 

http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=978606957&dok_var=d1&dok_ext=pdf&file..

Book in which you may find information about Postmodernism and Fowles’ narrative strategies

Project class

The idea of this project is to create an English literature miscellaneous.

Each student will be a co-author of the book which includes extracts of the major texts, questions and tasks for them.

During the course your group will work on some part of the book.

You should find major texts of the definite period, its most authoritative translations, choose the most prominent and important extracts to be included in the book, to create tasks, questions for discussion, controversial suggestions for each text.

You should also make your book bright and even interactive. Include illustrations, paintings, pieces of music and movies. The book will exist both in printed and electronic variant.

Present your part of a book during the last class. Think about original and interesting presentation involving most of your groupmates as participants.

Groups should consist of 3-5 people. Each member of a group should work equally and participate at each stage of a book creation.

Time limit for presentation: 12 minutes

Language: English

Group 1. Old English and Middle English

Group 2. Renaissance and 17^th century literature

Group 3. Enlightenment and Romanticism

Group 4. Realism and Victorian literature

Group 5. Literature of the 20^th – 21^st centuries.

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