English 4784, Senior Seminar
Women Writers Re-Presenting Marriage
CRN 12544, MW 2:30-3:45, Shanks 242

Professor Bernice Hausman

Final Exam

The final exam is due Thursday, May 11, 10am-12 noon in Shanks 206, Professor Hausman's office.

If you cannot hand the exam in at this time, please put it in her mailbox, #43 on the 3rd floor of Shanks Hall, and send an email so that she knows you have dropped it off. You cannot hand it in after May 11 at noon, so this is only an option if you must hand it in ahead of time. Put your name and Professor Hausman's name on the exam, if you leave it in her mailbox.

Please answer two of the following questions in a well-developed essay, each approximately 4-5 pages typed. Format your paper according to the guidelines for formal papers, including a bibliography. The essay itself does not have to be quite as polished as a formal paper, but should include an introduction, a developed argument, and a conclusion. Be sure to use examples from the texts to support your argument. You may use

1. What is the role of children in women's fiction about marriage written during the first third of the twentieth century? Using at least two fictional texts read or viewed for class, discuss how children function in the stories narratively (i.e., with respect to plot development) and in terms of the representation of marriage and its meaning in the texts. Use other sources read for class as necessary.

2. We tend to think of sex as a crucial aspect of healthy adult relationships. Sex is also thought to establish and maintain marital intimacy. Yet sex and sexuality seem difficult in some or all of the texts we read for this class. The main characters don't always recognize what their physical feelings about sex are, or sense that such feelings are dangerous, or do not act on their feelings for other reasons. To answer this question, please discuss the representation of sex in at least two novels read for class (or movies viewed) and examine how sex, sexual activity, and sexuality are understood in relation to marriage, personal identity, and individual freedom. Use other sources read for class as necessary.

3. Novels about marriage necessarily involve lengthy descriptions of courtship and what courtship entails. To answer this question, describe and analyze the courtship dilemmas, responsibilities, and hazards of at least two of the female protagonists we have examined in this course. How are they prepared or not for courtship? What skills are necessary for courtship success and are these the same that are necessary in marriage? How is courtship related to the protagonist's goals in a particular text? What are courtship's particular difficulties for women, given women's relative disadvantage in marriage?

4. Rachel Blau DuPlessis helped us to think about the relationship of the quest plot to the romance plot in novels of marriage, and this was especially important as 20th-century writers rethink marriage as the narrative endpoint of their novels and stories. Choosing two fictional texts read for class or viewed, discuss how the quest plots and romance plots are related in the overall narratives and why one wins out over the other in each given case. What does your study suggest about the relation of marriage to personal freedom in women's lives in the early 20th century?