Hebdomadal 1 Updated 1/24

A quick plea: please, if you could, include your hebdomadals in the text of your email rather than in an attachment. This saves me a step and allows me to get back to you more quickly. Your essays, on the other hand, I will ask you to hand in as attachments to email messages. Thank you for putting up with my confusing requests!

Topic 1: Lecture summary and expansion

Divide your hebdomadal into two paragraphs. In the first paragraph, briefly summarize one of the lectures you hear this week, either Ray's on Tuesday or Prof. Wolfe's on Thursday. In about five clear, short sentences, identify

1. The main argument or thesis that the lecture advances,
2. The smaller claims advanced to support that argument (you might think of these subclaims in terms of a set of questions into which the lecturer breaks down his main argument),
3. Examples of the evidence used to support those claims and the conclusions drawn from that evidence,
4. The way the conclusions drawn from that evidence helps the lecturer answer the main problem he raised for analysis.

That should be a short paragraph: please resist the temptation to narrate the lecture in its entirety, as I will feel terrible for having made you write a 1,000-word essay for the first week.

In the second paragraph--which should be longer than the first, and should be very much in your own voice--work through at least one way that the argument or interpretation presented in this lecture could be expanded upon, challenged, or applied to other parts of As I Lay Dying.

Topic 2: Really just a narrower version of Topic 1

Consider and briefly restate Ray's argument in lecture on Tuesday about the intermingling of time and space in As I Lay Dying. What does he conclude about the relation of time and space?

Use a passage from the last third of As I Lay Dying to expand Ray's argument. You might consider, for example, how Dewey Dell's attempts to get an abortion complicate the relationship between the body, language, and time/space.

Finally, and most importantly, suggest a reason why this particular topic is important to our understanding of As I Lay Dying. Be specific: how, exactly, does an exploration of the relationship of time and space in this text give us, as readers, a better sense of what Faulkner was trying to say? What was Faulkner trying to say with this book?