The Age of Victoria: ENGL 335
Before the political and industrial revolutions that initiate the 19th century, a stunning number of people followed a single pattern in their lives: kings and commoners tended to inherit their identity and stick to it. That would include social class, level of education, economic prospects, a particular line of work, their roles as men and women… and so on. That pattern may have changed less radically and rapidly in the 19th century than it would in the 20th, but the transformation of personal prospects would become a favorite legend in the literature of the new, post-revolutionary world. We will focus our attention on two prime examples in the literature of Victorian England: Charles Dickens, Great Expectations and George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, both published in 1860. Dickens’ Pip and Eliot’s Maggie Tulliver have pitched their expectations to the tune of the times. We will read supplementary texts in order to support the sense that they were not alone—including portions of John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1850) and The Subjection of Women (1869) and Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (1848).
After the thrashing my brain received in ENGL 302, it was a relief to be back in a more traditional English class in which we would be reading novels and writing about them. However, that is not to say that the class was any less intellectually stimulating or intriguing. Professor Butwin was kind of like Professor Reddy in the sense that he could talk for two hours straight, but he's the kind of guy that I didn't mind listening to for two hours. He was extremely witty and had a lot of great stories. Sometimes in the course of lecturing, he would veer off onto a tangent and talk about it for a considerable amount of time, but then inexplicably manage to tie it back to what he was discussing originally. I found the classes engaging, and the subject matter to be personally relevant. I had recently done a whole lot of growing up, so getting to read about how the attainment of maturity functioned in the context of Victorian England was certainly fascinating.
The first essay we wrote was an in-class one on Frankenstein. I didn't do as well on the essay as I'd hoped. This might be because we were writing on the spot and in a limited time frame, which can make it difficult to form a coherent argument. However, I think the main reason for my failure is because I didn't prepare adequately. Since I'd read the novel before, I didn't bother analyzing the study questions Professor Butwin had provided with much vigor. He even told us which section of the book we'd be focusing on, and asked that we consider "monstrosity" ahead of time, which I only did to have done, but didn't really put much thought into it. It's pretty clear that I'm compensating for a lack of a strong argument by the way my writing is frilly rather than clear. It seems like I'm trying too hard, making up for the fact that I was trying to figure out what I wanted to talk about while I was writing it.
The first essay we wrote was an in-class one on Frankenstein. I didn't do as well on the essay as I'd hoped. This might be because we were writing on the spot and in a limited time frame, which can make it difficult to form a coherent argument. However, I think the main reason for my failure is because I didn't prepare adequately. Since I'd read the novel before, I didn't bother analyzing the study questions Professor Butwin had provided with much vigor. He even told us which section of the book we'd be focusing on, and asked that we consider "monstrosity" ahead of time, which I only did to have done, but didn't really put much thought into it. It's pretty clear that I'm compensating for a lack of a strong argument by the way my writing is frilly rather than clear. It seems like I'm trying too hard, making up for the fact that I was trying to figure out what I wanted to talk about while I was writing it.
I was determined not to make such a mistake for our second essay. I read all the supplemental material this time, and - more importantly - made sure that I was emotionally invested in what I was writing. Finding an emotional attachment is the single greatest piece of advice my high school AP Lit teacher gave me, and it has proven time and time again to be effective in helping me craft some great work. Professor Butwin clearly appreciated the extra effort I had put in to really demonstrate all that we had been learning in class; he even flattered me by requesting a copy of my essay so that he could "shamelessly use it as an example in the future".
And here is my final paper for the class. I'll be honest, the success of my second paper caught me by surprise. While crafting it, I knew that it was technically solid and I definitely cared about what I was writing, but I was never enraptured by the process. For this final paper, however, I was determined to really finish the quarter out with a bang and impress Professor Butwin. I don't know the extent to which I succeeded, but I was genuinely inspired while writing this essay and it's one that I feel proud of.