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/lit/ - Literature

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1791158 No.1791158 [Reply] [Original]

/lit/

My last project of my high school career and I was looking foward to ending it with a paper my teacher will never forget.
I'm doing an analysis over James Joyce's "The Dead."

I'm having such a block, I don't know what to do. While I was reading, I had so many ideas but now I can't even think.
This is terrible. It's such a wonderful piece but I just can't get myself to type.

How do I get my mind's wheels to start a-turning?

>> No.1791178

I saw a guy toting a copy of finnegan's wake on the street yesterday and every fibre of my being cried out to nudge him and say "more like finnegan's piece of cake"

>> No.1791180

Also, I'm not asking for ideas for the assignment.
Just some methods to clear my mental constipation.

>> No.1791183

>>1791178
How clever..
but irrelevant.

>> No.1791197
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1791197

Come on guys, you've must've been in the same boat as I at some point.

>> No.1791209

>>1791197

Nah, I usually do papers that interest &/or challenge me, not in the hopes that my professor will get a boner.

>> No.1791225

>>1791209
Don't get me wrong.
I love this piece but that just makes this block even more vexing.

>> No.1791231

>>1791158
smoke some ganja

>> No.1791265

Asked /adv/ instead.
They gave me some good advice.

So nevermind you guys.

>> No.1791268

Just start brainstorming. Start with obvious themes on a piece of paper. Paralysis. Epiphany. Public Life. Work out from those. Paralysis > Gabriel > Stuck viewing Lily as a little girl > Lily isn't little > Lily paralyzed by her social role? > Gabriel = snow > snow melts > (you get the point). Just work with anything and everything, branch out in all different directions and at some point you'll find something you never thought of. Friend of mine just wrote a paper on Joyce and music (mostly focusing on "The Dead"). Shit's tight.

>> No.1791277

Damn, I was just going to tell you that you should try annotating through the paragraphs and then outline using the annotations only, expanding only after you have it all set up in that fashion, it always works for me.
Oh well, good luck with it.

>> No.1791285

If I have a block I start writing with pencil and paper. I just start writing and don't bother about getting the first sentences to make sense or to be worded correctly. Usually things start to flow much easier for me on paper. I write just what I think without pondering too much over the relevance or if it is correct. When I have a couple of pages I rewrite and structure what I have on the computer, and when I reach the end of my handwritten text I keep writing with no problems.
Hope that can help you in some way.

>> No.1791308

Actually, depending on how much time you have (which seems like not much) it'd be a great help if you explored the Irish socio-political situation around the time and Joyce's views on it. Also, definitely read other scholarship on it (I assume/hope you have the Norton edition of Dubliners). It also might be helpful to realize that Joyce was working heavily on Portrait around this time and the idea of the "nets" that Stephen mentions are what this shit is all about. I couldn't even begin to remember exactly what essay I was reading, but you also need to think about narrative voice: "Lily was -literally- run off her feet (yes, I know it's not quoted quite right)." Was she literally? Would Joyce say that or was that Gabriel's narrative touch? I'd examine at least the sparknotes of "Oxen of the Sun" from Ulysses as far as this goes. But I stick by my incredibly simplistic idea of making a thoughtweb and going from there. Also, I found your /adv/ thread. We rocked their asses, tyvm.

>> No.1791315

>>1791308

Oohhhhhh I was just reading through Joyce's statements on Oxen as being representative of a pregnancy. Maybe explore Gabriel as a fetus developing and being born and finally being allowed choice? Of course now it wouldn't be your idea, but still, compare this work with other work by Joyce or around the same time. Then you're going to see other ideas that were being tooled with now but only came to fruition later.

>> No.1791342

>analysis
ugh

>James Joyce's "The Dead."
fucking great stuff

>> No.1791429

Just annotate it sentence by sentence. I loved that story, read Dubliners my junior year of high school. It's pretty dense. I usually get by by annotating, then forming connections and organizing my thoughts from there.