Star_Lord Posted August 1, 2014 Report Share Posted August 1, 2014 Hiiiii! Im new and this is my first post anywhere ever. I kinda need a bit of help. I'm on summer hols atm and I'm working on my EE in English. I have a topic in mind but I have no idea where to go with it. In ToK class when I studied Language as a Way of Knowing, my teacher spent a couple days teaching us about storytelling and how we as humans are storytellers. What he was talking about is unrelated to my EE, but one thing he mentioned in passing kinda stuck with me. It was this idea of every story having 'archetypes' of certain characters depending on what kind of story it was. So like ideas of characters like the all-knowing, all-powerful, old man mentor, or the young saviour, the parent or parents of the saviour who sacrifice themselves, or the anti-hero with a heart of gold, the chase for the macguffin, the vengeful villain who wants to punish the world for [insert childhood trauma here], the tropes of a bildungsroman, etc. I want to create a topic that somehow allows me to explore the use of such archetypical characters and plot points and analyses their roles in manners in which they fulfil the traditional roles they're assigned, but also comments on how in their particular stories, the authors bring about certain changes, or surprise you with certain character developments and shift the archetype of a character. So like example a character you thought was the well-meaning mentor actually turns out to be THE villain with a childhood trauma or a 'Luke, I am your father!' moment. Does that make any sense? Alternatively, I was thinking maybe doing an essay on plays that breach the fourth wall and analyse the effect that they have...Though I'm not as keen on this as I was on the mess above. What do you guys think? I could really use some help! Thanks! 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrashmaster Posted August 1, 2014 Report Share Posted August 1, 2014 Well, I really like your topics, but I don't know how suited they are for the EE. I think you could probably do something with archetypes, but I don't know if what you've outlined would work. Lots of people do "To what extent does [insert character] play the role of a [archetype] in [book]?" I'm sure you could find a way to do your topic, but I think you need a specific book or two to look at. The 'twist' you want to explore is the part that trips me up. It is important to remember you need to be looking at the author's choices through literary features in an English EE. Archetypes fit, but 'twists' feel like they're more related to the plot and might not work. Of course, it is mostly up to how you write it. I like when plays break the fourth wall, and that's a creative idea too. How would you analyze the effect that they have? 3 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ak18 Posted August 2, 2014 Report Share Posted August 2, 2014 I agree with Thrashmaster above ^ Your first idea seems interesting and you probably would have enough content to write an essay. However, first you would need to find two novels, they might have similar characters, or different characters that play different archetypes. Although you need to be careful that you don't end up analysing the plot; you can comment on the changes in plot BECAUSE of the change in characters/archetypes. Also, since literature is a reflection of real world, I would suggest looking into the author's purpose of writing the novels that you would be choosing to analyze, and also comment on how archetypes also exist in the real world, and how that is reflected in the novels. There's plenty of ways you can go with this topic, however first you need to think out what about archetypes is it that you want to explore and sort of explain through your essay. Once you do that, you will have a better scope of framing an EE question, and then writing out an outline of your EE. Good luck! 2 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
yii yann Posted August 2, 2014 Report Share Posted August 2, 2014 Hiiiii! Im new and this is my first post anywhere ever. I kinda need a bit of help. I'm on summer hols atm and I'm working on my EE in English. I have a topic in mind but I have no idea where to go with it. In ToK class when I studied Language as a Way of Knowing, my teacher spent a couple days teaching us about storytelling and how we as humans are storytellers. What he was talking about is unrelated to my EE, but one thing he mentioned in passing kinda stuck with me. It was this idea of every story having 'archetypes' of certain characters depending on what kind of story it was. So like ideas of characters like the all-knowing, all-powerful, old man mentor, or the young saviour, the parent or parents of the saviour who sacrifice themselves, or the anti-hero with a heart of gold, the chase for the macguffin, the vengeful villain who wants to punish the world for [insert childhood trauma here], the tropes of a bildungsroman, etc. I want to create a topic that somehow allows me to explore the use of such archetypical characters and plot points and analyses their roles in manners in which they fulfil the traditional roles they're assigned, but also comments on how in their particular stories, the authors bring about certain changes, or surprise you with certain character developments and shift the archetype of a character. So like example a character you thought was the well-meaning mentor actually turns out to be THE villain with a childhood trauma or a 'Luke, I am your father!' moment. Does that make any sense? Alternatively, I was thinking maybe doing an essay on plays that breach the fourth wall and analyse the effect that they have...Though I'm not as keen on this as I was on the mess above. What do you guys think? I could really use some help! Thanks! I think doing something with archetypes is good, but you have to treat it as a literary device. As Thrashmaster has said, its easy to start discussing the plot when talking about archetypes, especially the twists! I would strongly recommend you look at what effect archetypes have on the reader - and consequently, what effect subverting these archetypes have on the reader. If you merely go along the lines of "but the reader was, like, really surprised!", then you'll be just talking about the plot, but if you manage to relate it to the overall theme (just an example) or analyze it as a particular literary device, then you'd have something worth writing about. The fourth wall thing might be easier as it's a more obvious literary device. It also feels a bit more fun to do! I always fancied soliloquies as "half breaking the 4th wall" so you might look into that. If you go along this line, Macbeth is particularly fruitful in terms of research. 2 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manjit Sidhu Posted August 2, 2014 Report Share Posted August 2, 2014 any ideas for ITGS EE 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arrowhead Posted August 2, 2014 Report Share Posted August 2, 2014 OP, I like your archetypes idea. What yii yann pointed out is vital though, always have a clear idea in mind of how you're framing your discussion in a literary context and ensure you're not going down a regurgitation-of-facts route. To make any meaningful headway with this topic, the key is going to be finding your books. Archetypical characters are in every book. Pick your novel or novels and then come back here and we can help guide you further if you'd like. But I think the topic and how you can approach it will become a lot easier once you've chosen the source material. On breaching the fourth wall, that honestly seems like a much, much more interesting topic. In nearly 5 years of helping students with EEs and English essays, I have never once heard of someone writing about that until now, which is surprising in and of itself because it's always a much-touted about occurrence in any play. But this is your essay, so do the topic that interests you more for at the end of the day, you have to write it. any ideas for ITGS EE Hey! We here on IBS are happy to help in any way we can, but we can't come outright and give you potential ideas for an EE or IA topic. Thinking about and developing your own Research Question is a part of the process and doing that for you is a form of cheating. However, once you've come up with a topic or even some idea of a topic (as you saw OP do in this thread), feel free to come back and post about it and the people on IBS will be more than happy to help and advise you to the best of their ability. Arrowhead. 2 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greyfaerie4 Posted August 2, 2014 Report Share Posted August 2, 2014 (edited) Hey, maybe you can do a comparison between a character that FITS into typical archetype VS a character that is unique and has lots of character development, and just try and NARROW down your question, just like what Thrashmaster said. IB loves multi-cultural stuff, so maybe if you're into Japanese anime, you can do a comparison of "Japanese Character Archetypes" VS "US Hollywood film archetypes" and pick TWO characters? Or pick 2 books? Remember, dig narrow and deep. Oh and, I really need help with this, I don't take Film as a subject but I am doing an EE about it (plz tell as many ppl as possible ) http://www.ibsurvival.com/topic/30345-help-with-film-ee-about-godzilla-i-dont-take-film-as-subject-questions-about-rq-and-theory-of-media/#entry221461 Edited August 2, 2014 by Greyfaerie4 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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