ENG 236 Norther Virginia Community Feminism in A Scandal in Bohemia Report

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Humanities

eng 236

Northern Virginia Community College

ENG

Description

After completing the reading and activities in each module, you will be required to complete a Module Project. You are given several choices for completing the project in each module. Some are creative options, allowing you to flex your creative writing as well as analysis skills and to dabble in multi-media approaches for demonstrating your understanding of readings, major concepts, etc.


Unit 3 Project: 19th Century

Select ONE of the following projects by ONE of the authors:

Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia”:

1.Compare this story with Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.” How, in particular, are Holmes’s and Dupin’s methods of deduction similar or different?

2.Irene Adler contests Holmes’s perceptions of women and their abilities. Is “A Scandal in Bohemia” a feminist text? In order to answer fully, you must first describe your criteria for a feminist story and support your claim with specific examples from Doyle’s work.

3.Create a PowerPoint montage of the interpretations of the character Sherlock Holmes over the generations, noting how the character endures, even with changes, making him one of the most recognizable literary characters in history.

4.Watch the PBS version of Sherlock, episode “Scandal in Belgravia” and compare it with the original story.

Nikolai Gogol, “The Overcoat”:

1.What is the relationship between realism and fantasy in “The Overcoat”? Compare this combination to the Magical Realism of Gabriel García Márquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.”

2.Compare this story to Maupassant’s “The Necklace.” Both stories revolve around a piece of apparel and in both stories the lives of the protagonists change after they attend a party and lose (or relinquish) their prized possession. How are the overall themes of the stories similar or different?

3.Compare Akaky to another famous copyist: Bartleby. How is Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener” influenced by Gogol’s story?

Henry James, “Daisy Miller”:

1.As a man, Winterbourne enjoys many privileges that Daisy does not have. Explore the gender restrictions in James’s world, the ways that Daisy challenges them, and the price she pays for her defiance.

2.Creative option: Because the narration closely follows Winterbourne’s consciousness, we see very little of Daisy’s mind or motives. Look carefully through the short story for clues to Daisy’s point of view. Write a series of diary entries for Daisy from her point of view, discussing the events as they take place in the story.

Guy de Maupassant, “The Necklace”:

1.In the end, Mathilde seems fated to be in the class she was born into, and class mobility seems an impossibility. Is Maupassant critiquing the rigidity of rigid class structures or is he suggesting that she is right to finally accept this class status? Take a position on this issue then argue and support your answer with specific examples from the text.

Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”:

1.What elements make “The Cask of Amontillado” a horror story? Define the traits and aspects of horror and demonstrate how they are evident in the story.

2.Compare “The Cask of Amontillado” with “The Purloined Letter.” Stylistically, what do they have in common? What aspects of Poe’s craft do you see in both stories?

Domestic Cluster:

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”:

1.After reading the excerpt of Gilbert and Gubar’s essay “Madwoman in the Attic” also included in the anthology, write an essay that answers the following questions: Is the ending of the story a triumph for the narrator? Why or why not?

  1. Research Option: Study the history of treatments for mental illness historically and during the nineteenth century, including S. Weir Mitchell’s Rest Cure. Write an essay or create a PowerPoint or video examining such treatments. You might consider, in particular, why men and women were prescribed very different treatments for “nervous disorders.”


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Explanation & Answer

Attached.

Surname 1
Author’s Name
Professor’s Name
Course
Due Date
‘Feminism in A Scandal in Bohemia’
Women began expressing their prowess and abilities decades ago. Feminist stories
have been written glorifying the deeds of powerful women who accomplished great
milestones during their time. As a result of an exposure to education and a revolution in the
thought process of the feminine gender, an uprise began that started demanding an equal
platform for females to thrive just like their male counterparts. The realization that women
could perform better than some of their colleagues of the male gender made their perception
towards themselves change. This realization marked the beginning of feminism and the flow
of feminist literature. Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story A scandal in Bohemia, is a depiction
of the three waves of feminism seen overtime and that contributed to the belief that women
can equally accomplish what men can or rather perform better than men.
Doyle’s tale is a feminist literature representing the first wave of feminism. This wave
denoted that women are seen by their female characteristics such as being pure,
compassionate, and nurturing. According to Derwin (n.p), Doyle uses the principles of first
wave feminism by showing Adler’s traits from a male perspective. The entire story about
Irene Adler focuses on the events and actions of Adler from the point of view of the male
characters and not from her point of view. The reader does not directly connect with the
character Irene Adler because male narrations by Doyle, Dr Watson, and Sherlock Holmes are
the ones adopted to uncover her traits. For instance, the incident where Sherlock Holmes
notices where Irene Adler has hidden the photograph of the king is seen in a conversation that

Surname 2
Holmes has with Dr Watson. Holmes states that, “It was all-important. When a woman thinks
that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most…..I
hesitated whether to attempt to secure the photograph at once; but the coachman had come in,
and as he was watching me narrowly it seemed safer to wait. A little over-precipitance may
ruin all” (Doyle 16-17). Irene Adler’s strong character traits that are equivalent to those of the
masculine gender are not outrightly depicted.
Doyle’s short story also depicts the second wave of feminism that asserts that the traits
of both men and women are valid but separate. At the time the story was being written and
published in 1891, the feminist movement had not yet marked its heyday but the message that
was evident in this piece of writing was that women held their individual ...

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