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Purpose and Content
The objective of the
Card Report assignment is to analyze a work into its component parts.
Usually confined to the front and back of one 5 by 8-inch index card,
such a report is just as challenging to write as an essay.
To do the job well you have to
see the story in its elements, then specify them succinctly and
accurately. In this assignment you are asked to include the
following:
- The title of the story play
or poem and the date of its original publication.
- The author’s name and
dates.
- A terse, chronological
summary of the story’s main events (plot).
- The name of the central
character, together with a description of the character’s main
traits or features. In the case of some poems, create a
description of the speaker’s main traits or features.
- Other characters dealt with
in the same way.
- A short description of the
setting.
- The narrator of the story,
or the point of view in which the story is told.
- A description of the
general tone of the story: the author’s apparent feelings toward
the central character or the main events (atmosphere, moods, or
ironies).
- Some comments on the style
in which the story is written (or the form and prosody of the
poetry). (Brief illustrative quotations are helpful, insofar
as space permits.)
- In a sentence, the
story’s main theme.
- The story’s leading
symbols (if any), with an educated guess as to whatever meanings
each symbol suggests.
- An evaluation of the story
as a whole, concisely setting forth your opinion of it. (This
is the most important part of the report; most students find that by
the time they have separated the elements of the story, they have
arrived at a definite opinion of it.) Be sure to support your
opinion with a brief reason or two.
The Technical Parameters
All the information must fit on a
5 by 8-inch index card. You may use front and back. You may
neatly write the information by hand or, preferably, you may type or
word-process.
To fit so much information
into the space of a single card is demanding. The student who
wrote the sample succinct report on “Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight” (below) had to spoil a few trial cards before he was able to
do it. Every word has to count, and making them count is a
discipline worthwhile in almost any kind of expository writing.
Some students enjoy the challenge. In doing such a report, while
you may feel severely limited, you will probably be surprised at how
thoroughly you come to understand a story. Besides, if you care to
keep the card for future reference (you English majors), it won’t take
much storage space. A longer story, even a novel, may be analyzed
in the same way, though in such a case two cards might be essential.
Grading Criteria
25 points
possible (roughly 2 points for each section).
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. . . . . . . . . . . (Course number & title)
STORY: “Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight” (1375-1400?)
AUTHOR: Unknown, of the
Middle English Alliterative Revival, modern English translation by Marie
Boroff (1967)
. . . .EVENTS
IN SUMMARY: (1) King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are
sitting down to dinner on the 15th day of the Christmas feast when en
enchanted knight all in green enters and challenges one of the Court to
a beheading game. Gawain accepts the challenge on behalf of Arthur
and lops off the knight’s head. The knight collects his head and
reminds Gawain to meet him in his Green Chapel in 12 months for part 2
of the contest. (2) The seasons pass; Christmas draws near again.
Gawain sets out on his quest. On Christmas Day he finds himself at
a remote castle where a lord makes him welcome and invites him to pass
the Christmas feast. On the 3rd day the host bargains with Gawain
that whatever he wins on the hunt he will give to Gawain, and whatever
Gawain wins while relaxing at the castle, he must give to the lord.
(3) While the host hunts deer, the lady of the castle tries to seduce
Gawain in his bed chamber. On day 1, Gawain and the host exchange
a doe for a kiss; on day 2, a boar for 2 kisses; on day 3, a fox for 3
kisses, but Gawain withholds the lady’s green belt. (4) Gawain
sets off to meet the Green Knight and finds the chapel. On the
Knight’s 1st swing, Gawain flinches. On the 2nd swing the Knight
nicks Gawain’s neck. It is revealed that the Green Knight and
the host are one and the same, Sir Bercilak de Hautdesert. Morgan,
Arthur’s half-sister, had arranged the trick to test Arthur’s honor.
Humbled, Gawain returns to Camelot, and all the knights of the Round
Table wear green belts to show their solidarity.
. . . .CENTRAL
CHARACTER: Sir Gawain, a knight of Arthur’s Round Table.
He’s self-controlled, honorable, brave yet gives in to fear and
superstition, proud, but humbly admits hit faults. OTHER CHARACTERS:
Sir Bercilak, massive strong, head-strong, fair-spoken, very hospitable;
Lady de Hautdesert, beautiful, hospitable yet seductive; Arthur, proud,
head-strong; Morgan, bent on her brother’s demise; other knights and
servants.
. . . .SETTING:
Medieval England: particularly Camelot; a journey through a dark forest;
a mysterious castle in the wilderness; and the chapel of the Green
Knight (a grotto).
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. . . .NARRATOR:
a poet outside the action of the story yet who; enters into the poem as
the storyteller (ll. 1009-1010).
. . . .TONE:
A chivalric poem of courtly love and honor, resplendent with descriptive
passages juxtaposing feasting, joy, and beauty with gore, slaughter, and
violence revealing two sides of humanity. The author is
sympathetic to Gawain and his plight and exalts him based on his
humility and the insight he gains. The tale hints at foreshadowing
the eventual downfall of Arthur.
. . . .STYLE:
Reviving alliterative style of Old English verse of 12th century.
15-30 line stanzas of long alliterated lines “But in his one hand he
had a holly bob / That is the goodest in green when groves are bare”
(ll. 206-7), followed by a 2-syllable word or phrases (the bob) and 4
lines of iambic trimeter (the wheel) rhyming ababa.
. . . .THEME:
No matter how good we think we are, the flesh is weak. We sin, and
no matter how insignificant it may seem, it has consequences, and
we can’t undo what’s been done. But if we carry it with us, we
can learn from it (and other’s mistakes) so as not to fall prey to it
again, and thus be wiser if not stronger.
. . . .SYMBOLS:
Green color: the natural side of humanity, more passion than
reason—chaotic, pagan, animalistic. The Green Knight: a Satan
figure who challenges and tempts. His name Bercilak de Hautdesert
may mean “mercy lacking in the high desert,” just as Jesus was
tempted in the wilderness. This figure attacks one’s basic
identity, “If you are who you say you are, then prove it.” The
storm (l. 2000): inner spiritual turmoil, esp. in Gawain as he struggles
with his guilt and fear. The doe: the pursuit of courtly love.
The boar: courage, royalty. The fox: wit, reason, cunning.
Sir Gawain: a type of Christ. The green belt: a type of cross.
. . . .EVALUATION:
Besides being a wonderfully vivid Christmas tale (all green and red) of
the knights of the Round Table, it is a story of what happens when a
righteousness person gives in to even the slightest temptation and what
the consequences are of such a slight against one’s own integrity and
against the integrity of a community. The Pagan and Christian
elements play off one another to reveal allegorical levels off meaning,
one level being an allusion to Christ’s temptation in the wilderness
or perhaps his descent into hell, another level being how persons of
integrity deal with their own shortcomings, or perhaps on another level
it may be a comment on something that was happening politically or
ecclesiastically during the reign of Richard II. |
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