Midterm on Grief Is the Thing With Feathers
Choose one of the prompts below. Write a clear, focused essay answering the question. Submit your paper to Turnitin.
Quoting is not necessary, but direct, specific references to the text are important to ground your discussion. Mark which option you have chosen at the top of your paper. Note there is not a word requirement, but most students write around 800-1000 words in this timed essay when writing in a classroom.
Option A
Do you consider Crow to be an insider or outsider to Dad and the Boys? He could be either, or both, depending how you see his purpose. Does Crow interfere with or interrupt the Dad and Boys, or support them? What exactly is Crow’s place in the narrative? What is its duty, purpose, or obligation? Crow visits the family in a time of grief and while he seems to surprise Dad, you can argue that Crow is already familiar to Dad because Dad has been writing about the Crow in the work of Ted Hughes. Does Crow visit the family because Dad has already been thinking about him?
Option B
How does the novel transform its themes into an experience of something? How does the novel address us in a way that seems true? The novel does not seem to offer a singular experience of grief or loss but gives us a confusing picture, at turns playful, heartbroken, sacrilegious, light or profound. For the novel to mean anything at all, we depend on our knowledge about family, loss, grief, and the role strangers and outsiders play in our understanding of ourselves. How does your experience of the novel reflect the novel’s ideas?
Novel:
Have Grief Is the Thing With Feathers
