For your final blog assignment, you will compare and contrast the way two characters in any of the three works (F451, Cuckoo's, Streetcar) use language to gain power over others. This will be due by midnight on Friday, 8/26. To complete this task you'll need to know a little bit about how power works, so start out by watching this animated TED video with theorist/activist Eric Liu: How to Understand Power As you watch, think about how you might apply this to the way characters try to exert power over each other through their speech. Do they use particular words, explain particular ideas, or talk in certain ways that let them wield power over overs as Liu describes? If you need a little more guidance, check out the slides below, which explain how another theorist, Norman Fairclough, connects language and power in analyzing conversations:
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To begin, read this summary of the sociological study of gender. Find something you think you can apply to the character or characters you've chosen to analyze, developing a thesis about the influence of gender socialization on their conduct. Maybe a character is obsessed with some aspect of their assigned gender role that has come to define them. Or maybe they can't live up to the stereotype and others criticize them for it. Or perhaps you want to look at how two characters' relationship is hindered by their fixation on playing these roles instead of being honest with each other. The point is to find something you feel comfortable writing about and make it interesting! Make sure you include two quotes from the play and/or the linked sociology sources. Good luck!
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AuthorMr. Justin Biggs Archives
August 2016
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