Below you will find a list of approved novels for the Junior CP Research Paper. On the pages following you will see suggested prompts and topics for research that relate to each novel. Your assignment is to write a 4-6 page paper addressing one of these prompts. You will need to read and annotate the novel as well as use at least three outside resources, one of which must be a critical analysis essay. The outside sources will be explained in more depth in the weeks to come.
Novels (in alphabetical order)
1. Douglas Adams - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy2. Richard Adams - Watership Down
3. Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
4. Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale
5. Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre
6. Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights
7. Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
8. Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales
9. Charles Dickens - Great Expectations
10. Charles Dickens -David Copperfield
11. Charles Dickens -A Tale of Two Cities,
12. Charles Dickens -Oliver Twist
13. Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
14. William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying
15. William Faulkner - Light In August
16. William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
17. E.M. Forster- A Passage to India
18. E. M. Forster - Howards End
19. E. M. Forster - A Room with a View
20. William Golding - The Lord of the Flies
21. Thomas Hardy - Tess D’Ubervilles
22. Seamus Heaney or Burton Raffle - Beowulf
23. Joseph Heller - Catch 22 / 24. Ernest Hemingway - For Whom the Bell Tolls
25. Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God
26. Henrik Ibsen - A Doll’s House
27. Henry James - The Turn of the Screw
28. Henry James - The Portrait of a Lady
29. James Joyce - A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
30. Jack Kerouac - On the Road
31. Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
32. Sue Monk Kidd The Secret Life of Bees
33. Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye
34. George Orwell- 1984
35. William Shakespeare - Othello
36. Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
37. Upton Sinclair - The Jungle
38. John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
39. Bram Stoker - Dracula
40. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - Slaughterhouse Five
41. Tennessee Williams - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
42. Edith Wharton - Ethan Frome
43. Virginia Woolf - Mrs.Dalloway
1. Douglas Adams - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
a. Write an essay that critiques the scientific accuracy of a specific science theme in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, such as the babel fish or the Infinite Improbability Drive. Make a claim related to the connection between how society had viewed technology throughout modern history. Consider the contrasts between how technology was imagined and how it is used today. Be sure to have a provable claim and use the book to support it.
b. Investigate and make a claim about the role of the absurd in literature, giving examples of books that use it as a device and explaining what purpose the absurd can play in communicating a message. What role or point does “absurdism” play in modern literature and culture?
2. Richard Adams - Watership Down
a. Discuss the systems of government for the different rabbit warrens in the story; comment on the extent these governments are allegorical representations of human governments. Find a larger message for these ideas as connected to the plot. Use research on the time in which the book was written to inform your ideas.
b. Consider the concept of environmentalism as it applies to the book. Why did Adams choose to make the main characters animals instead of humans? What is the effect of this choice. Use biographical and historical evidence to build and develop a thesis on these concepts.
3. Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
a. What is the role of marriage in the novel? How does the novel provide commentary on Romantic Era marriage customs? Are any of the girls representative of Austen herself?
b. By researching Romantic England find the areas of satire that Austen instilled in the novel. Specifically focus on the concepts of pride and of prejudice.
4. Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale
a. Write an essay that explores feminist concepts present in the novel and compare them with issues that were important in the feminist movement of the 1970s.
b. Write an essay comparing the theocracy present in the novel with the one that took over in Iran in 1979 and compare the experiences of women in the two societies.
5. Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre
a. The novel is a great exposition of the place of women in Victorian society. At the time, the superiority of men, both in a physical and mental capacity, was a widely accepted theory. It was difficult to achieve any sort of influence or power for women, except through association with a man, and especially through marriage. Develop and explore a thesis on this concept as it applies to the novel.
b. Research and report on social class in mid-nineteenth century England. This was a time of great change as the old aristocracy and gentry were being challenged by a new elite made wealthy by the industrial revolution. The face of poverty was also changing as agricultural workers moved into cities looking for factory work. This was a time of great social unrest, which produced literary critics like Dickens and Bronte, as well as political ones like Karl Marx, who wrote the communist manifesto. How do you see social class in Jane Eyre?
c. Bronte, a devout Anglican, relies heavily upon the ideas and language of the bible —especially the New Testament—in her novel. Find several passages in which she does this, and explore how she uses the ideas in her story implicitly and explicitly (by allusion). You may choose to research how these passages are usually interpreted, but certainly explain how Bronte interprets them.
6. Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights
a. What role does social class and class ambiguity play in Wuthering Heights? To what extent is Heathcliff’s social position responsible for the misery and conflict so persistent in the book? Research historical information to inform your thesis about the role of social class in the novel.
b. Is Heathcliff at all heroic (a Byronic Hero perhaps [look this up]), or is he villainous? Pick a position and support it, identifying Heathcliff's redeemable/heroic qualities and explaining his villainous qualities, or vice-versa. Use research to support your theory and develop your thesis.
7. Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
a. Alex and his friends use a distinctive dialect called Nadsat. This is the Russian suffix for "teen" and most of their expressions are Russian or derived from it (Horrorshow from the Russian Kharasho - good - being one example.) Burgess was writing during the Cold War and he intended that to properly understand the book the reader would need a Russian dictionary. At the time the Russians were regarded as the enemy. By identifying Alex and other teens with them, what point was Burgess trying to make? Was he arguing that teenagers are an enemy of society, that the Russians were misunderstood or simply trying to make Alex and his companions seem alien?
b. What role does violence play in the story and the changes in Alex’s character? Consider the society in which Burgess lived, and his personal life. What was he trying to say through his use of violence in the novel, and what, if any, message can we take from it?
8. Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales
a. There is a debate among scholars about whether or not Chaucer was a feminist. Look at his female characters and decide whether he was a feminist, a misogynist or an average man of his time. You will need to research women’s lives at the time and examine closely the prologues and tales told by women. You should also look at how women were represented in the tales told by men.
b. Chaucer considered himself to be a Christian, yet he employs bawdy satire, especially in his commentary about the clergy and those associated with the Catholic Church. Develop a thesis exploring Chaucer’s use of satire, considering the medieval religious practice.
9. Charles Dickens - Great Expectations
a. What are the “great expectations” in the novel? How do they develop through the story? How do they relate to the real world setting of Dickens’ novel.
b. Clearly, one of the most obvious images of imprisonment in Great Expectations is represented by the character of Magwitch, the escaped convict who becomes Pip’s generous benefactor. There are many other subtle references to imprisonment though, among them the handcuffs made in Joe’s forge. Write an essay in which you identify the many images of imprisonment in this novel, and explain the symbolic significance of these images relative to the theme. Connect this to historical and biographical research.
10. Charles Dickens -David Copperfield
a. Research Dickens’ use of social criticism in the novel. What is he trying to say and how is he using the novel to say it?
b. While England, even in 1850, was a democracy to an extent, it still had a rigid class system. How has Dickens presented this in David Copperfield? Is it accurate to how the world actually was at that time? What is he trying to say about the role of class in VIctorian Society?
11. Charles Dickens -A Tale of Two Cities
a. Do the themes of resurrection and self-sacrifice, and the setting of the French Revolution have anything to do with one another? Why would Dickens set his story in this particular time and place?
b. The idea of resurrection or rebirth pervades this novel. How does Dickens use this theme? What does Dickens seem to be saying with it? Consider the historical aspects as well.
12. Charles Dickens -Oliver Twist
a. "Society and Class" is one of the central themes of most Dickens novels. In Oliver Twist, Dickens often shows how superficial class structures really are. How do his observations, characters and plot show us the attitude of the Victorians toward the poor? How are other social classes represented?
b. Fate and free will are common concepts in literature. How are they shown in this novel? Which characters seem to be able to affect their own fate and which seem locked into a particular path? How much control do characters have over their lives? What does the author’s attitude toward these concepts tell us about the Victorian culture?
13. Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
a. Race and racism are huge issues in invisible man. Discuss how the narrator’s sense of identity is tied to his race and how racism affects the characters in the text. How does his invisibility coincide with his racial identity? What does the novel tell us about the African American experience during the time when it was written?
14. William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying
a. Multiple narrators, stream of conscious and unreliable narrators are all interesting literary concepts that are used in As I Lay Dying. How does these concepts affect the reader’s experience? Are these techniques successful? Which of the characters do you trust most? Who is most reliable?
b. The concepts of death and suffering are a major part of the novel. What do the character’s opinions and reactions to these concepts tell us about the time period and the south in general? How do they connect to philosophy at the time?
15. William Faulkner - Light In August
a. How does race play into the novel? What events from the time period might have affected the novel? How does Joe Christmas’s biracial status affect him?
b. Southern novels are often interested in history and how it’s legacy affects the present. How do the character’s histories affect them? How does the legacy of the old south affect them?
16. William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
a. Shortly after The Sound and the Fury was published, the noted critic Clifton Fadiman dismissed the novel, claiming that its themes were too “trivial” to deserve the elaborate craftsmanship Faulkner lavished on them. Many other critics have countered that the novel’s themes extend beyond the story of the Compson family specifically, and grapple with issues central to human life in general.Using historical context, develop a thesis on these ideas.
b. How does the American South of the time period in which this novel is set intrinsically affect the development of the story? Also consider the writing style, how would the novel be different if it were written in more formal third person English. Use these ideas as a starting off point for your thesis.
17. E.M. Forster- A Passage to India
a. How does the novel deal with the racial differences between the “Orientals” and the British? Does it support racist ideas or challenge them? How does it fit with ideas about Orientalism and colonialism from the time period?
b. How does the novel treat women? Is it feminist or does it promote traditional stereotypes from the time period? Is there a difference in the way English and Indian women are treated?
18. E. M. Forster - Howards End
a. Howards End is written just before a period of major changes occurred in society. These changes were definitely on the horizon. How does the novel deal with changes that are imminent? Is change perceived as bad or good? What specific areas does it suggest are about to undergo change?