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English EE - The Road, by Cormac McCarthy... Help with Question!


Taigan

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Hello IBS :P

I've been having lots of difficulties formulating a question for my EE. I know for sure that I'm doing it on The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. My first question was: In what ways does Cormac McCarthy explore varying traits of the feminine through the portrayal of female characters in the novel The Road? but I realized that was stupid, superficial and didn't have any substance.

I've come up with a couple of new questions, and I'd like to know what you think. Here it is:

Question 1) How does Cormac McCarthy use dreams to foreshadow the demise of the father in The Road?

Is "foreshadowing" too typical of a concept to focus on? From the two other students I know doing an EE in English, their titles have something to do with foreshadowing...

Question 2) How does Cormac McCarthy use dreams as a tool to highlight hope and strength of the human condition?

Which do you think carries more significance and is a better option?

Any advice would be appreciated... :P

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Okay well I haven't read the book but, although there's no reason why other people doing foreshadowing should prevent you doing it, I think that your title is very specific and would worry about getting 4,000 high-quality words out of it. Then again it might be a massive topic, as I say I haven't read the book!

Being honest, I think you're going to get the deepest analysis about something which allows you to observe multiple techniques. So I'd never make the first part of your EE question specific. In my opinion, you're much better off talking about "how does Cormac McCarthy highlight the strength of the human condition" and then naming caveats (so like "in the first half of the book" or "using his characters" or whatever to limit your question if you need to). Otherwise you are, in my opinion, never going to make the sorts of incisive observations you could make if you were allowed to look at the same thing from multiple angles.

In other words: I would choose the thing to look at, rather than the author's angle on that thing.

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