The American Road—Paper on Seekers

Due Thursday, 3 May, by 2:00 p.m.

Send papers as Microsoft Word attachments to rpfeingold@smcm.edu
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Your paper should be 2800 words, or roughly 8 pages. Please don’t include your name anywhere on the paper itself—I try to grade anonymously. After I’m done, I can reconstruct who wrote what from my e-mail files.

For further information about my general technical & stylistic expectations, please see my paper-writing FAQ page : this will give you information about citation styles, tips on how to construct an argument, etc. It’s mostly designed for Intro students, but it might give you some useful hints. Generally speaking, I respond well to a solid organizational structure; close, detailed reading of specific passages; a connection between those readings and a larger idea; and careful proofing.

Assignment:
As the syllabus says, “In your essays, you’ll be expected to select a text we’ve read; articulate a significant question or idea arising from your reading of it (in the context of the American Road); and explore that idea or question in depth. In other words, have a thesis, for crying out loud, and develop it into a sustained argument. In all essays, you’ll be expected to perform close textual readings as well as demonstrate quality abstract thought.”

Here are some possible prompts for writing:

1) In Steinbeck, we saw the automobile depicted as demanding and dangerous—something that sucked time and attention away from people, and was ultimately dehumanizing. How are cars imagined in one or more of these texts? What’s the relationship between the individual, the car, and the Road?

2) What’s the relationship between the inward quest and outward journey in one (or more) of these texts? How does one map onto the other; how does the success of one affect the success of the other?

3) Gender, gender, gender. How is any of the protagonists (male or female) affected by his/her gender identity—not just in the sense that men and women might be doing different things, but that their experiences might be subtly (or not so subtly) shaped by expectations (their own and others) about what being male or female means? You might also think about changing the terms of this question, and consider the role of Least Heat-Moon’s ethnic identity, or Codrescu’s national identity.

4) How does the West get imagined in these texts? Is it the same west we saw in reading about the Frontier, or something different?

5) What kind of space is the Road for these authors (and you may consider one, or several)? Is it redemptive? Nostalgic? Meaningless? Does s/he imagine new frontiers, an end of possibilities for movement, or something in between? Is the Road a space where new communities are forged, or where society is abandoned? Is the Road a place to discover oneself as an American, or to founder in alienation? Basically, is there a consistent, definable philosophy about what the Road signifies in any one text, or that appears across several?

If you have any questions, please ask…